World Community Grid

I was listening to NPR several years ago and I heard about this research project that involved university researchers using the internet to connect individual PCs together to act like a supercomputer. Last November, I again was listening to NPR and I heard about it again and caught the name: World Community Grid. You download this software and once you set it up, your computer downloads a "problem" and begins making calculations when your CPU is available. When the calculations are complete your computer uploads the results and downloads a new problem. My computer is currently doing AIDS research. Projects include, Help Defeat Cancer, Human Proteome Folding, and Fight AIDS @ Home.

World Community Grid's mission is to create the world's largest public computing grid to tackle projects that benefit humanity. Our work has developed the technical infrastructure that serves as the grid's foundation for scientific research. Our success depends upon individuals collectively contributing their unused computer time to change the world for the better. World Community Grid is making technology available only to public and not-for-profit organizations to use in humanitarian research that might otherwise not be completed due to the high cost of the computer infrastructure required in the absence of a public grid. As part of our commitment to advancing human welfare, all results will be in the public domain and made public to the global research community.

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org

The software created by IBM is not obtrusive and most people wouldn't even know that it was running. You can even join teams and compete for the heck of it to get the most points. I am on the Nashville, TN team, but there should be a Nashville Bloggers team. Check it out and make your computers down time do something.