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Some of you will have heard about SETI@Home, which uses your computer's spare CPU cycles to help search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, but fewer are aware that the same technology is being applied to help find cures for Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

It's easy to do, and won't cost you anything, except maybe a few cents' worth of electricity. Just go to Folding@home (folding.stanford.edu) and download and install the software.

If you have a Sony Playstation 3 you have the capability to contribute far more than desktop computers. Folding@home running on a Playstation 3 takes advantage of the Playstation 3's new Cell processor to perform calculations at speeds previously possible only on supercomputers.

There's also an option to take advantage of your computer's Graphics Processing Unit to provide much faster folding calculation performance from desktop computers running ATI graphics processors. This, however, is more difficult to set up, and requires specific driver versions.