All your base are belong to Microsoft?

WASHINGTON — Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, one of the richest men on Earth, pledged Friday to donate $13.5 million for the research into extra-terrestrial life.

With the contribution, Allen will have given $25 million for the construction of the Allen Telescope Array , a network of 350 radio telescopes being built to find signs of life in space, said Thomas Pierson, director of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute.

The radio telescopes will measure the density of the early universe, the formation of stars and magnetic fields.