Climate & Nature...

You're probably using only a fraction of your computer's computing power when it's on. When it's idle, you're using even less. But now you can put that unused processing power to good use coming and help come up with the next generation of solar-power materials.

The Clean Energy Project @ Harvard University aims to create "organic photovoltaics to provide inexpensive solar cells, polymers for the membranes used in fuel cells for electricity generation, and how best to assemble the molecules to make those devices."

The problem is, there are tens of thousands of possible combinations of the organic materials that would be used to create those substances. Which combination is the best?

That's where you -- and your computer -- come in. By downloading the project's software at the link above, your computer will become part of a worldwide grid of similar computers, and will help to calculate the optimal materials during the time your computer would otherwise be idle.

Obviously, an "off" computer is better for the environment than an idle one, but if you're going to be idle anyway, you may as well be doing some good in the process.