genome@home?

[JungleMan]

Is anyone here participating in the genome@home project, and if so are you doing it for the VB-World team?

I am crunching but not for VB-World.

[Emo]

nope but it's doing SETI@home...

aliens are more interesting

-Emo

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by Emo
nope but it's doing SETI@home...

aliens are more interesting

-Emo

For what team?

Aliens are cool, but I'd rather work to better humanity

How many WUs do you have?

I have about 300 (which is not nearly as many as you think...Genome WUs aren't worth as much as SETI WUs. It's a whole different system, kinda confusing at first, and weird.)

[Gandalf_Grey_]

i used to be doing it but since i formatted (about 4 days ago) i havn't bothered. Seti@home i find is a little overrated. If an alien civilization really wanted to contact us they would broadcast a really strong signal. One which the mega computers doing it the first time would pick up, not a weak signal which is dished out to the distributed network

[plenderj]

Yup I'm 7th in the VBWorld team

http://genomeathome.stanford.edu/tea..._VB_World.html

[Julian Toft]

I am # 17 on the team

[SirSpeedy113]

Originally posted by JungleMan


For what team?

Aliens are cool, but I'd rather work to better humanity

How many WUs do you have?

I have about 300 (which is not nearly as many as you think...Genome WUs aren't worth as much as SETI WUs. It's a whole different system, kinda confusing at first, and weird.)

sorry I'm kinda late but I just made my SN here...

anyway, I'm helping my friend out with this.. it's for TeAm AnandTech

so far, me and my friend have made about 170WUs... (about 4 hours each)

-Emo

[mendhak]

Originally posted by Gandalf_Grey_
i used to be doing it but since i formatted (about 4 days ago) i havn't bothered. Seti@home i find is a little overrated. If an alien civilization really wanted to contact us they would broadcast a really strong signal. One which the mega computers doing it the first time would pick up, not a weak signal which is dished out to the distributed network

I believe SETI is trying to detect the presence of alien signals; whether they're trying to communicate with us or not isn't the main thing.

And here's something you might find interesting: SETI did indeed pick up a signal, many years ago. It's only happened once, and is therefore inconclusive evidence of ET existence. However, one more signal exactly like that would be of considerable interest to SETI believers.

Read this copyandpaste if interested:

most people aren't aware that a signal so powerful it couldn't be backround noise and in a restricted frequency has been detected (I'm sure at least some of you have heard of this; I hear it's been mentioned on The X-Files). Do me a favor for a moment and forget all the stereotypes of aliens you've seen in movies and TV (little green men with bulging eyes and humongous heads) and enjoy the length of this topic.

The above mentioned signal was detected on August 15, 1977 at 11:16 P.M. EDT, to be precise. Perhaps that date will be remembered as the day one of the most significant finds in the history of science was discovered (no, it's not a black monolith ). Anyhow, that was the minute it entered the radio telescope at the Ohio State University Big Ear Radio Observatory (that's right--Ohio ). Jerry Ehmen was monitering things that night and when he saw the printout of the signal he immediately recognized its significance. In fact, he scribbled the word "Wow" in the margin of the printout, giving the signal its name.

Before I describe the signal itself, it's important that you understand the importance of its frequency. It came in at a frequency of 1420 MHz, right near the frequency scientists have long believed intelligent aliens would broadcast their messages to us in. What's so special about 1420 MHz? It's very close to the neutral hydrogen line (1420.4075 MHz), the precession frequency of neutral hydrogen atoms. Any backround noise at that frequency would be hydrogen atoms, making it a perfect frequency to study the natural universe at (as well as searching for ET signals). For these reasons it's a restricted frequency--no spaceprobes, airplanes, etc. can broadcast in it.

The following six characters were the entire "message" (it wasn't a message, just a radio emission but it serves the same purpose--detecting or discovering intelligent life):


6
E
Q
U
J
5


These characters represent the strength of the signal over about 37 seconds. The system they were using at the time goes like this: the numbers 1-9 represent how much stronger than the normal backround noise something is (for example a 9 means something was 9 times a strong as the backround noise). The letters A-Z are used to extend that system--for example A is 10 times the backround noise. So 6EQUJ5 goes like this:

6 means the signal was 6 to 7 times stronger than the backround.
E (a few seconds letter) means that the signal
was about 14 to 15 stronger than the backround.
Q means the signal was 26 to 27 times the backround.
U (the peak) was where the signal was between 30 and 31 times the backround.
J is where the signal began weakening to 19 to 20 times the backround.
5 means the signal was now 5 to 6 times the backround.

So, we have a signal that reached almost 31 times the backround. That's pretty strong.

But where did it come from? Well, using epoch 1950 (which was used in 1977), the right ascension (kind of like longitude if you picture a giant sphere surrounding the Earth) of the signal was 19h 17m 24s, while the declination (like latitude) was -27d 03m. This puts the signal in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius.

The signal lasted 37 seconds. That's important because the Big Ear can't move, it just sits there looking at what passes it. 37 seconds is exactly the time it takes the Big Ear scanning beam to survey a given point in the sky (this pretty much rules out any Earthly interference). Any signal from space would increase and decrease over 37 seconds exactly as the Wow signal did. A few minutes later when the same region of sky was surveyed the signal was not recorded; perhaps turned off by it's senders. It was an intermittent signal.

So what was it? Let's try to look at some plausible possibilities.

Planets No planets were near the source of the Wow signal. Besides the signal was broadcast in a very narrow band of frequencies. Planets usually broadcast over the entire radio band. Seems unlikely it was a planet.

Asteroids Again none of the larger ones were near the location of the signal. Also, they are so small that they produce much less thermal radiation than a planet would.

Satellites Well, first off 1420 is a protected frequency band. No satellite should have been broadcasting in it. All known satellites' orbits were checked--none passed over the Big Ear at the time of the signal or in the direction of Sagittarius.

Aircraft Again, no aircraft broadcast in the protected band. Aircraft also move with respect to the stellar backround. The Wow's intensity pattern matched almost perfectly the pattern we would expect from a point radio source at such a large distance that we detect no perceptible motion to the backround stars.

Spacecraft No spacecraft broadcast in the protected band. Also, a check was made of all known spacecraft and none were in the direction of the source of Wow.

A Ground-Based Transmitter None broadcast in the protected band. But if one were could it's signal have bounced off some space debris and entered the Big Ear? Yes, but that's unlikely for several reasons. First, it would have to be broadcasting in 1420 MHz, which is unlikely. The space debris it bounces off of would have to be metallic, which many meteoroids are, but it would have to not be tumbling, which is unlikely. It would also have to not be moving significantly to the celestial backround--possible for debris not orbiting the Earth.

The most probable terrestrial and natural sources seem to have been ruled out, leaving the most interesting possibilty:

Extraterrestrial Intelligence Before we can conclude that this is the source, we must detect it again. We have far to little data to make such bold assumptions. However, I personally like to think this is likely and certainly hope this is in fact the source. But at the moment, the Wow remains a mystery.

Recently, Robert Gray (and a few partners) has been trying to find the signal again. He used the VLA (Very Large Array, best seen in Contact) a few years ago, and in 1987 and 1989 he used other radio telescopes (at Oak Ridge Observatory in Massachusetts) to search for it. He's searched for a weak but steady signal; he found nothing. He considered the scenario that Wow was a brief powerful signal to draw attention to a weaker continuous one; again, he found nothing. However, he could only devote about an hour (if that) to any particluar search at any particular position in the sky. It's possible that the signal is cast intermittently and is on when no one is listening. What do you think it was? Will it ever be detected again? Will it someday have an impact on us?

[plenderj]

uhn bull**** methinks

[SirSpeedy113]

WOW good stuff

-Emo

[plenderj]

That document reads like a piece of ****.
It really does look like a load of lies.

He's dropping in vague physics principles into the piece.

Anyway, if we did receive a signal, it would be entirely meaningless until we received information on how it was encoded.

You could do any number of operations to the data to make it look like numbers, or exert a particular pattern.
But until you actually received the precise encoding mechanism... bah!

Also, the signal could have come from other space-borne objects.
Eg. black holes, quasars, pulsars, stars...

Going straight to extra-terrestrial intelligence is jumping-the-gun ...

[MrPolite]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa this looks interesting!!!! I just joined!

[SirSpeedy113]

Originally posted by MrPolite
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa this looks interesting!!!! I just joined!

Join our group...PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEe.. we need more people

jsut donwload SETI from here: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/windows.html

and when you set up the account, put down [email protected] where it says E-mail.. that way you can join us and help out

Thanks a LOT if you join

-Emo

[plenderj]

Nah you wanna join the VBF Team

http://genomeathome.stanford.edu/tea..._VB_World.html

[MrPolite]

Originally posted by SirSpeedy113


Join our group...PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEe.. we need more people

jsut donwload SETI from here: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/windows.html

and when you set up the account, put down [email protected] where it says E-mail.. that way you can join us and help out

Thanks a LOT if you join

-Emo

Umm I joined the genome thingie

[MrPolite]

Originally posted by plenderj
Nah you wanna join the VBF Team

http://genomeathome.stanford.edu/tea..._VB_World.html

umm I think I joined the vbf team. It asked for the team # and I found the VBF number in the site and entered it... that's all I had to do, right?

[mendhak]

Originally posted by plenderj
He's dropping in vague physics principles into the piece.

Show me.

Also, the signal could have come from other space-borne objects.
Eg. black holes, quasars, pulsars, stars...
[/B]

Since you seem to be asserting your knowledge of physics here, you ought to know that signals received from those are much weaker. Reread it and note the characteristics of the signal.

[plenderj]

Originally posted by MrPolite

umm I think I joined the vbf team. It asked for the team # and I found the VBF number in the site and entered it... that's all I had to do, right?

um. think so

[SirSpeedy113]

Genome sucks.. go with SETI

-Emo

[snakeeyes1000]

I can settle this. Nobody gives a **** about the ****ing genome or the ****ing seti things. They are both a load of ****ing bull****. You can take SETI and GENOME and find some ****ing ******* to shove them up his ***.

[parksie]

Someone's not getting any...

[barrk]

me thinks his meds wore off or something!

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by SirSpeedy113
Genome sucks.. go with SETI

-Emo

SETI sucks! I'd rather use my cycles for bettering human kind than for finding aliens!

I'd crunch for the VB-World team but I've got another forum with a far higher priority (being that I'm a mod there and all, and I'm actually proficient with the subject matter ), AMDMB team is #14 although we are far behind #13.

[MrPolite]

umm I had a little questionnnoooo
I've been running this genome progyy for about 4 hours now and it has only compeleted 11 out of 30 "sequences"... is it suppose to take that long?
Umm also I cant see my username in the site.....

[JungleMan]

Download Genome Spy (look it up on Google) and it will tell you the estimated time it should take to finish the sequence.

How fast is your computer?

[MrPolite]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I downloaded the proggy and it says est left: 1d 3h 46min
***?!!!! takes a day and a half?! only for one protein?!


I have a Piii 800mhz with 256 ram

[JungleMan]

What does the AA value say?

[MrPolite]

Originally posted by Jungle-Man
What does the AA value say?

AA?

[MrPolite]

oh found it
it says 60

[JungleMan]

Hmm, yeah, the higher the AA value is the longer it takes to crunch. The highest I've seen is 98 and the lowest I've seen is about 30.

Your processor is one of the only really big variables in your slow crunching time.

[SirSpeedy113]

Originally posted by parksie
Someone's not getting any...

hahahah I second that...

by the way, for seti, you need about 4 hours to do a WU(on my pc)...

-Emo

[Slaine]

I've downloaded the client and set it up - I even entered the VB Forum Team ID but after completing 2 wud's I went to the team statistics page and it was all folding@home not genome. And there was no indication that I was part of the VB team.

The client says folding@home all over it but I selected the option that said I would prefer to do genome but still no luck.

Can anyone tell me what is wrong, and how I join the team.

[plenderj]

www.coolground.com/plenderj/ghclient099_win.exe

[Slaine]

Thanks Jamie. Now I'm off to set it up on all the office machines

[plenderj]

heh I have it running on all our machines too. including our server