SONY SAYS IT WILL  add a button to the Network Menu on its PS3 to enourage users to connect to Stanford Universitys Folding@home programme.

Or users can optionally set the application to run automatically whenever PS3 is idle, it annnouced last night.

Folding@home is a distributed computing project attempting to broaden the understanding of protein folding, misfolding which can cause diseases such as Parkinsons, Alzheimers, cystic fibrosis and many cancers.

In its announcement Sony claims its Cell chippery is "roughly 10 times faster than a standard mainstream chip inside a personal computer."

An associate professor of chemistry at Stanford University said he was "thrilled" to welcome Sony to the, um, fold. µ