I've been checking out the concept of distributed networking recently and thought I'd list a few of the ones that I'm interested in.
FightAIDS@Home is the first biomedical distributed computing project ever launched. The software uses your computer's idle cycles to assist fundamental research in discovering new drugs, building on their growing knowledge of the structural biology of AIDS.
Einstein@Home is a program that uses your computer's idle time to search for spinning neutron stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors. Einstein@Home is a World Year of Physics 2005 project supported by the American Physical Society (APS) and by a number of international organizations.
Climateprediction.net is the largest experiment to try and produce a forecast of the climate in the 21st century. To do this, they need people around the world to give them time on their computers - time when they have their computers switched on, but are not using them to their full capacity.
The Mersenne Prime Search is more or less a recreational pursuit to find a 10 million digit (yes, I typed that right!) prime number.
