How bad is television these days? So bad that despite our 400 channels, astronomers have decided to scan the heavens for better shows.

Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said yesterday that they would scan 1,000 stars in our neighborhood for television, radar and FM signals. They will search the least-energetic wing of the electromagnetic spectrum, radio waves, the media over which our communications are broadcast. The search is for accidental signal leakages, not proof that the popular sitcom "Friends" is actually of extraterrestrial origin. "Soon, we may be eavesdropping on signals from Galactic civilizations," says theorist Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for astrophysics (CfA). "This is the first time in history that humans will be capable of finding a civilization like ours among the stars."

[Photo credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)]