I've recently come across a Minigame inside a game/MMO where the goal apparently is to identify/locate the (stained) proteins inside a human cell, and to classify where/in what pattern the protein can be found.
I've not yet entirely understood what it does, and I certainly can't say if this is a good idea or not, but it sounds interesting enough to spend some time
From the game itself:
http://www.eveonline.com/discovery/
An IMO better explanation/description:
http://massivelyop.com/2016/03/20/eve-e ... discovery/
(This also highlights the problem of crowdsourcing - any system can and will be abused.)
From what I gather, this embedding of sciency mini-games isn't an entirely unique or new aproach - the idea seems reasonable enough, every game where you spend significant amounts of time has phases where you sit twiddling your thumbs.
Please note: this is in no way intended to be an ad for that game. While I am playing it (again), I have often quit and I'm not sure if I really should recommend it. However, this sciency mini-game seems interesting enough to talk about.