*Disclaimer: this short read I write here is a layman's personal opinion, I am aware that technology and science in general also bring challenges to society but prove to have a huge positive impact in the long term, this is ofcourse yet another opinion and up for review.*

**Anyway:**

## Science: the engine of prosperity


![science2.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmcQBpoPLufhSnhsxxjGZmgXy8C5MopBcEaTCTZdgeMhvp/science2.jpg)

It's intertwined in everything we have and do today. Wether you warm up a meal in a microwave oven or the non sticky coating of a frying pan, having better ways to travel or send a picture half the world away originated from a seemingly first obscure unneeded theory in daily life, never knowing that it could produce a spin-off playing an unseparable role in the future.

## Science as a weapon

It helps us overcome the challenges that lie before us:
Giving us the means to identify and defend ourselves against climate change, provide mechanical and medical understanding that can prolong, or even better, improve our quality of life, be it life expectancy itself or faster and efficient transportation.

## Science as a shield
* To combat misinformation ("fake news" in social media or papers sponsored by multinationals in the others..)
* To scrutinize self proclaimed experts and fanatism.

### Interested in helping out?

Sponsoring research projects are commonly done by governments or their counterpart big [NGO's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-governmental_organization) be it by monetary grants, donations or voluntary (field) work.

However, individuals like you and me can help speed up the progress of certain projects by volunteering our idle computers and even smartphones and tablets. Helping universities analyze their results with computing power. This is called distributed computing.

A good example of this is [BOINC](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/).

It's an application that runs tasks for a wide range of projects that focus on things like fighting diseases, mapping genes or materials for clean water or energy but also more esoteric fields like astrophysics and molecular biology.

Examples are [World Community Grid](https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/index.jsp) and [Rosetta@home](https://boinc.bakerlab.org/).

If all of the above interests you but could use an extra incentive or compensation, you could try your hand on a nobler aspect in the world of cryptocurrency and install for example [Gridcoin](http://www.gridcoin.us/) which rewards you for work done in BOINC, This is by no means required though.

More information and guides how to install can be readily found on their respective sites and communities.


Image credit by [Pexels](https://www.pexels.com/).

Thank you for reading.