This is a great idea, using other ppl computers to make calculations that could help cure eg. cancer. We could make a renderosity team :) I'm sure we could be listed at the top. I think this take a mod to set it up if we want to go as a team. I'll wait and see if we become a team, but I'll join anyway. Please take a look http://folding.stanford.edu/

yes, unless the cure involves something that a pharmaceutical corp. then tries to patent and sell at $400 per dose, whilst prohibiting sales or production of cheap generic equivalents.

This was first done by SETI with SETI@Home to search radio signals from space for ET's. It was a fine idea till someone mucked it up and decided to make a profit off of it. Why help drug companies make more money off of us for less work? Now if they were going to pay me for my CPU time, I wouldn't mind sharing with a for profit business. You can say it's done for pure intentions by a EDU all you like. I know how many EDU sites are Pharmalogically funded and backed for reasearch purposes.

Yes I remember having my pc running 24/7 looking for "aliens" for a while.

I see it like this, no matter who profit from it, I don't mind helping. True that maybe a med comp will get the big buck while I get nothing, but it could end up saving lives. I'm not so naive that I belive it will save everyone and even thought it might only be saving people in the rich west ...

Well .. maybe it's because I lost people close to me, to some of those diseases. Helping them will be to late, but maybe my sons generation will benefit from it.

Quote - This was first done by SETI with SETI@Home to search radio signals from space for ET's. It was a fine idea till someone mucked it up and decided to make a profit off of it. Why help drug companies make more money off of us for less work? Now if they were going to pay me for my CPU time, I wouldn't mind sharing with a for profit business. You can say it's done for pure intentions by a EDU all you like. I know how many EDU sites are Pharmalogically funded and backed for reasearch purposes.

Attached Link: http://www.grid.org/about/

Anyway, their software has been running on my machine for exactly 1 year, 133 days, 20 hours, 34 min, and 4 seconds.  (I turn my machine off when not in use).

This is a screen capture of their program. Click image to englarge.

i dislike big pharm as much as the next little guy, but i usually reserve my accusations for stuff for which i can show some evidence.  is doing a wee bit of research before dissing a project too much to ask for?  i highly recommend it; it preserves one's bile production for issues that actually deserve it.

from the FAQ:
Who "owns" the results? What will happen to them? Unlike other distributed computing projects, Folding@home is run by an academic institution (specifically the Pande Group, at Stanford University's Chemistry Department), which is a nonprofit institution dedicated to science research and education. We will not sell the data or make any money off of it.

I applaud anyone who is trying to help mankind without regard to profit, but I need ALL my cpu cycles to surf Renderosity.

SETI will never find aliens with radio signals.  Why would somebody millions of years more advanced than we are use radio signals?

Quote - I applaud anyone who is trying to help mankind without regard to profit, but I need ALL my cpu cycles to surf Renderosity.

SETI will never find aliens with radio signals.  Why would somebody millions of years more advanced than we are use radio signals?

well.. they had to start somewhere... they did'nt go from amino acids to FTL Hyperwave Com's in 1 night. given the distances involved, even if they are 'millions of years more advanced', we're only getting radio chatter from stars millions of light years away now... so, radio is infact the simplest and easiest form of Com's for any civilisation to start out with. tis basic physics actually..

I hope seti can find some indisputable proof of a radio signal from beings on some other planet, but I daresay the current system is incapable of recovering such a signal from the background radiation, especially since they have not demonstrated their ability to receive signals beyond an hundred AU or so. regarding stanfurd's research, best of luck, but look into the funding of said university and its medical department before assuming there's no pharmaceutical corporation involved.

the only people assuming anything here are the ones who blab about things for which they've been too lazy to do the research.  of course pharmaceutical companies are involved in funding at stanford med school -- i can even tell you how much, because i looked into that during merck's attempt to silence criticism of vioxx:  in 2004 $29 million came from drug companies.   that's 9% of its total research budget.  and it's not an unusual amount for med schools of stanford's caliber.

but it is completely irrelevant in this case, since the non-profit group running this program is not going to sell the data.  the data will be freely available to everyone.

Quote - ... but look into the funding of said university and its medical department before assuming there's no pharmaceutical corporation involved.

Without the pharmaceutical corps. involved, I strongley doubth there would be much medicine around. Where would the money for research come from? And would I let my son suffer from an infection (or worse) because I wouldn't like to support the greedy pharmaceutical corps? I don't think so.