How to Use Folding@home on a PlayStation 3

Believe it or not, you can use your PlayStation 3 to benefit humanity. "Folding@home" is a distributed computing program that allows Stanford University to use the computing power of your PlayStation 3 to simulate the folding of proteins. Stanford's goal is to use this information to better understand protein folding and related diseases.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• PlayStation 3 console
• Internet connection

1. Turn on your PlayStation 3 and sign in to the PlayStation network.
2. Download the "Folding@home" application to your PS3.
3. Run "Folding@home" whenever you are not using your PS3. Stanford will use your PS3 to fold virtual proteins.
4. Check your progress. By pressing the triangle button on your PS3 controller, and selecting "My statistics," you can see how many proteins your PS3 has folded.
5. Join a team. If you have other friends with PS3 consoles, you can join their folding team. You can also check the progress of other individuals on your team, or of your team as a whole. Stanford will give your team a ranking based on how many proteins it has folded.

Tips & Warnings

• Turn off your controller to save battery power while folding. Press the "PS" button, and select "Turn off controller."
• Explore the various user options of "Folding@home." The program allows you to see where other people are folding throughout the world, what the protein you are folding looks like and what Stanford is doing with the data you are providing them.