Stanford University's Folding@Home program studies proteins to understand their goal in cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other diseases. Of course, this kind of research requires enormous computing power. The University's network has been running 200,000 computers.

PlayStation 3 owners are able to hook their consoles to the network and help the program accomplish its goals. Since March 15, 600,000 PlayStation 3s have been connected to the program delivering a petaflop performance to the university's network.

The software to connect PlayStation 3 to the network is provided by Sony. The application is free and donates computing power from your PlayStation 3 to the network when your console is idle.

PlayStation 3 is an extremely powerful machine, far more powerful than average home computers. PlayStation 3's multiple 3.2 GHz cell processors deliver nearly 1.8 teraflops of computing power.