A million PS3 owners have signed onto Folding@Home

It hasn't yet been a year since the Folding@Home client was released onto the PS3, but in the 10 months since its inception there are now over a million PS3 owners on the Folding@Home network. How do we know this? Sony has sent out a rather handy press release telling us all about it - which includes the fact that this equates to 3000 people signing up every day. Or, if you prefer your linear time nuggets in smaller doses, two people signing up every minute.

Vijay Pande, Folding@Home Project Lead, has said that the research is increasing "in leaps and bounds" since the partnership with Sony started up in March 2007. Only six months later, the network exceeded a petaflop of data. The research taken from the project simulates the folding of protein molecules in order to see in what environments and situations they fold incorrectly, which is what causes various cancers as well as Alzheimer's disease. We're happy to see more PS3 owners join the Folding fold, but are slightly startled by the figure. With upwards of 8 million PS3s out in the world, why are only a million joining the fight. This figure is to be congratulated, but we can't help but feel slightly disappointed that it's still relatively low.