The PlayStation 3 is increasingly finding a home in the field of academia. Since March, the Folding @home project has been helping Stanford University researchers explore the process by which proteins form. Information processed by the distributed computing program could help give scientists new insight into the causes and treatments of diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and cystic fibrosis.

　　Now another researcher is using the PS3 in the hopes of making scientific advances. According to Wired, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth astrophysicist Dr. Gaurav Khanna has rigged up an array of eight PS3 systems to help him crunch numbers in his study of theoretical gravity waves. The waves are supposed to be a byproduct of a supermassive black hole consuming a star, and Khanna is using the processing power to determine if such waves would be strong enough that we could observe them some day.

　　Previously in his research, Khanna was forced to pay as much as $5,000 for the use of a supercomputer to crunch his numbers. Although Sony provided Khanna with the PS3s free of charge, the astrophysicist told the magazine it would still have been cheaper to use PS3s instead of the supercomputer.

　　"Basically, it's almost like a replacement," he said. "I don't have to use that supercomputer anymore, which is a good thing."

　　Khanna hopes to publish his findings in the next few months.