Folding@home is yet another
distributed computing project, brought to you by
Stanford. Basically, they're gathering computers to simulate
protein folding, and hopefully solve that great, great mystery of
molecular biophysics. Currently, the client software consists of a
screensaver for
Windows and
console versions for
Windows,
Linux (only Intel at this time), and
Solaris (Sparc).
The folding@home web site (http://foldingathome.stanford.edu) has tons of information on protein folding, proteins in general, and the mathematics behind the client. Perhaps the best part about the project is that for every sequence that is completed, an mpeg-format video and accompanying image files are released on the site. Also, since Stanford is a place of learning, the results will be shared with the scientific community. Most excellent.