How To Split An Atom

For years now, my idle CPU cycles have been hard at work searching for alien life. While this is a noble goal, it is just a little more pie in the sky than say, helping to cure disease.

Cure disease? Yes indeed, and to everyone’s surprise it is Sony that has shown me how. The PS3, on top of costing $400, not actually existing (in large enough quantities), and possibly costing Sony billions of dollars in hardware loses may also help to save people from a number of diseases, including Alzheimer’s.

By leveraging the idle processing power of the Cell chip, a network of PS3s could produce a distributed super computer capable of outperforming the likes of IBM’s BlueGene. Sony is already in talks with the Human Proteome Folding Project to see what can be done to add their software to the system.

If you aren’t planning on buying a PS3 until after the inevitable fall out cuts the price in half, you can still do your part by signing up for Folding@Home.

[Image from BBC News. Thanks to Eric for recommending this site]