Heya Leon,
SETI is the Search for ExTraterrestrial Intelligence.
"
radio SETI, uses radio telescopes to listen for narrow-bandwidth radio signals from space. Such signals are not known to occur naturally, so a detection would provide evidence of extraterrestrial technology. " quote from Seti website.
Basically the Boinc client uses the unused CPU cycles ( when the puter is idle / or not) to process data from Arecebo radio telescope ( and other I believe) to help find Alien life communications.
Boinc can also use your puter for other computer intensive tasks such as finding a cure for cancer or help with dissecting the info from CERN to find the Higgs-Boson(?) particle ....anybody correct me if I'm wrong.
Many other worth while projects are available.
Its like a massive computer linked by all the people that have joined a project.
Leon here are three links to get you up to date.
And join for that mater...
If IIS has a team let us know.....
Bartman
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_about.php
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/