Recently I've joined something called "World Community Grid]", which is a non-profit that has developed a small program that runs on your computer. When your computer is 'idle', or when the screensaver kicks in this little program activates and does number crunching for science. There's a number of projects you can donate idle computer time to, from scientists working on studying variations of certain kinds of cancer, to mathematicians who are trying to solve complex math problems, to cosmologists who are using computers to theorize the 11th dimension.

Personally I think this is a cool way to contribute to science, and the program lets you choose which projects interest you and which ones should run when your screensaver is active, or your computer is idle. I like to imagine that some of these might help the medical field, and even help improve treatments for many in the transgender community.

The program doesn't access any of your personal data, it just downloads a "work unit" from the server, it compiles it and runs different simulations, and then sends it back once complete. When you're using the computer it turns off and waits for the computer to be 'idle' again. It allows scientists who don't have access to big mainframe computers to be able to also use computer power in their work. There are millions of computers doing these tasks, all from users like you and me who donate their screen saver time.

Anyway, I thought I'd share this in case it also interests others here. [More @ Wikipedia]