PS3's to help science community?

PS3 churning at proteins

Now I am not a doctor, or for that matter even remotely adept at the sciences, but I was just wondering if anyone knows what purpose this function of the PS3 serves?

Does this mean that by keeping my PS3 running I can help cure AIDS or cancer?

If anyone has any insight as to why Sony would build this kind of functionality into their new gaming systems, I would love to know.

Cheers

Check out the folding @ home web site

folding.stanford.edu...

It's not so much for aids because aids isn't a result of when proteins "misfold".

Basically proteins in your body as part of other functions "fold" and when the "fold" improperly it can cause certain types of diseases.

So understanding how these proteins "fold" can greatly help scientist come up with solutions to this "misfolding".

So all folding @ home does is model protein folding (I think) and then send them the data back so they can crunch the numbers, and stuff.

Or that's my vague understanding.

High power graphics engine that runs a linux kernel. Easy to adapt as linux code can be compiled to run quite easily and low cost for the power available....

Basically does what SETI @ home does. Crunches the numbers and sends it back. The cell processor has a lot of untapped potential in other applications. Cant wait to see what other things they can do with it.

Basically it simulates how different proteins fold, as was said before, each of these simulations would take months for a single computer to process so by spreading the calculations to thousands of computers it will speed up the process.

Now, every PS3 is exactly the same as the next, so the company was able to optimize a program for the exact specs of the PS3, I've read that effectively it amounts to each PS3 being able to run the program in the same way a 20GHz computer could, as the PC version is not optimized.

These protein folding simulations are used to understand why improper folding can lead to illnesses such as alzheimers, parkinsons?, and some forms of cancer.

Sony is basically doing this as a good deed/ PR thing.