Folding@Home, a system which allows gamers and geeks everywhere to contribute spare CPU power towards a system made to investigate protein-folding and how this complex science can be used to battle diseases such as cancer, has now been recognised by the Guinness Book of Records.

The Folding@Home project has proved very popular with gamers and PlayStation 3 owners especially, the efforts of whom more than doubled the power of the system. Just a few weeks ago Folding@Home passed the PetaFlop milestone for both PC and PlayStation 3 owners. PlayStation 3 owners reached the PetaFlop mark by themselves shortly afterwards.

Now the project is recognised by the folks at Guinness as being the worlds most powerful distributed computing network in the world.

"To have Folding@home recognized by Guinness World Records as the most powerful distributed computing network ever is a reflection of the extraordinary worldwide participation by gamers and consumers around the world and for that we are very grateful," said Vijay Pande, associate professor of chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home project lead in a press statement.

"Without them we would not be able to make the advancements we have made in our studies of several different diseases. But it is clear that none of this would be even remotely possible without the power of PS3, it has increased our research capabilities by leaps and bounds."

There are currently more than 670,000 PS3 users signed up to the effort. If you want to sign up your PC or PlayStation then you can do so here, but be sure to join up with Team Bit-Tech (Team: 33346). Find out how to do that by clicking here. Then you can boast about your contribution in the forums.