An AT reader tipped us off that Sony Computers and Stanford University have been urging Playstation3 users to participate in the Folding@home program. We've been a fan of Folding@home for some time now, so we were in total agreement that it was something to share with AT Home Tech readers.

Folding@home is a distributed computing system that utilizes your home computer (and now a Playstation3) to help researchers study and cure diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cystic fibrosis, and many cancers. What it does, is install a small program that harnesses some of your computer's spare processing and simulates protein folding. They need all the help that they can get, so volunteering to run in the background of your computer is definitely a good deed.

With addition of the Playstation3 to the mix, Folding@home has more than doubled its computing power. Just think about how many Playstations are out there in the world, and it's not hard to imagine how they've made such an impact.

An added bonus is the fabulous graphics it displays while it is running and that you can use as your screen saver. A bit of art for your desktop (or television), as well as helping to save the world, one protein at a time.