IIRotD: FreeRice

Another timesuck of a game that can have beneficial effects. FreeRice allows you to brush up on your vocabulary skills while donating rice to help end hunger. For every answer you get right 10 grains of rice are donated with the money produced by ads on the site. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it adds up and if you are just playing games anyway...

Anyway, the vocabulary section is rather good and they also have the option to switch to another catagory to help you learn about art, math, grammer, chemistry, and foreign language. So you learn, and someone else eats.

IIRotD: foldit

How much time do you spend wasting away your life playing point and click puzzle games on your computer? Do you ever get frustrated that you didn't do something constructive? Then foldit is for you.

This game allows you to help with important scientific research by folding interactive proteins. By collection the methods used by humans to fold proteins, it's possible that current protein folding programs can be made more efficently. Check out their FAQ and their About sections for more info. And if you are interested then download the game to your computer and start folding. Also, don't worry if you are a bit confused at first since the game starts you out with a tutorial and allows you to master one thing at a time before you start folding the more complex proteins.