Today, Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking announced a $100M initiative to seek extraterrestrial life, injecting renewed energy (and funds) into the hunt for life (specifically, intelligent life) beyond our fair planet.
Although this has been a decades-long area of research and interest, with the SETI institute playing perhaps the most important role in recent years, this new initiative promises to engage many more researchers and to create “the most ambitious and robust SETI program yet performed.” Observations should begin as early as 2016. The introductory video is available here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/national/health-science/breakthrough-initiatives-introduces-new-search-for-extraterrestrial-life/2015/07/20/d0d7a1b2-2eed-11e5-818f-a242f28e7022_video.html
Additional information is available in several locations, including here:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stephen-hawking-and-yuri-milner-announce-100m-initiative-to-seek-extraterrestrial-intelligence/
http://www.ucolick.org/news/initiative-apf.html