[rottyguy]

Are there mining algos that also help to solve real world problems (say gene mapping)? It seems that you could leverage some of the gamification happening here to better some social facet of society.

[lozenge]

No. The problem in that suggestion is, who is going to provide the problems? It would be a central actor who can opt to pre-work on the problems and use those solutions to issue themselves "money".

[votepaunchy]

No, it would simply require solving a function dependent on the previous solution. Preferably more complex than double SHA.

[croon]

FoldingCoin is doing something like that, but I'm not involved enough to speak authoritatively about specifics.

[Y_Y]

A simple search would find several of these.