So in a past life, I was a Molecular Biologist, and I've still got a graduate degree in Microbiology and Immunology collecting dust somewhere. For all I do to bag on the PS3, there is a rather spectacular, and totally unlikely area in which the console has demonstrated some real utility: protein folding kinematics.

You see, every protein (what you hear referred to on infomercials as enzymes) has a 3D shape that allows it to do its job. Like the way only your key opens your lock, so too will only a correctly shaped protein do its job. Which can be to prevent a cell from becoming cancerous, generate energy for the cell, or just about anything else - proteins do ALL the work that goes on in our cells. Understanding how they "fold" (settle into these 3D shapes as they are created) is key to molecular medicine, since drugs are basically chemicals with a shape that allows them to "fit" into a little groove or pocket on the protein's 3D structure, either helping or hindering it as it attempts to do it's one job within the cell.

The more we know about protein structure, the better, more specific and more potent drugs will get. This is a VERY GOOD thing, because it increases efficacy, reduces required dosages, and will significantly reduce side effects (which can be caused by drugs sticking to parts of enzymes you didn't mean for them to interact with).

The PS3 is a supercomputer, no question about it, and the Folding@Home project (read all about it in this Wired magazine summary) taps into these übermachines when we're not killing zombies with them to solve 3D structures of proteins, and do good for modern medicine.

In short, neat. Good job Sony. Good job scientists.