You’ve heard about Africa’s malaria epidemic. You may know that it kills a million children each year. Maybe you’ve even read there’s an affordable, realistic, achievable way to reduce suffering – insecticide-treated mosquito nets.

But you’re busy. You’ve got a job and a family. You donate to a slew of charities already. Short of packing your bags for Africa, what’s there for you to do?

How about going about your day as usual – and letting your personal computer work to save lives?

Volunteer computing – think high-tech screen saver – hasn’t caught on quite yet. But it could, and that’s what makes Malariacontrol.net exciting.

Here’s how volunteer computing, also called grid computing, works:

Privately owned computers, during their idle time, help solve scientific or engineering problems that require a lot of computer power. Rather than grinding massive computations through a single, expensive supercomputer, researchers spread the work between hundreds, or thousands, of smaller machines.

Volunteer computing applications allow researchers to solve big problems, like earthquake simulation and climate modeling. The University of California’s SETI@home, the world’s largest volunteer computing project, sorts telescope data. More than 5 million PCs worldwide have downloaded SETI@home software.

Likewise, Malariacontrol.net, launched earlier this month, was created to harness personal computer power, for a worthy cause. In Malariacontrol.net’s case, volunteer computing allows researchers to simulate how malaria is transmitted and how it effects human health.

“It’s a wonderful new concept,” said Teresa Rugg of Snohomish, a Peace Corps veteran with a master’s degree in public health.

Rugg works with RESULTS, a group that lobbies members of Congress to deal with poverty-related issues.

“A lot of people around here are concerned about global health,” Rugg said. “But when you listen to the news or read the paper, its overwhelming.”

Volunteering your computer isn’t.

According to its Web site, Malariacontrol.net will achieve in mere months what would otherwise take up to 40 years. That’s incredible news – because time is of the essence. Every day, thousands of children with malaria become victims of preventable death.

Meanwhile, President Bush has asked Congress to cut U.S. support for the Global Fund, which handles two-thirds of all malaria-relief donations worldwide, by 47 percent. That’s unacceptable.

So what can you do? Well, you could march on Washington, D.C. More realistically, you could put your computer to work on the problem.