Sunday 18 May 2008

Go play a game

Yeah, more time wasters. There's a whole slew of them on Stuff, and I'll be checking them out...

But if you want to feel like you're doing something more substantial, you can contribute to Science! Through the power of games! FoldIt is a puzzle game whereby you twist chemical molecules, representing viruses and cures and the like, trying to make the highest score. And this is a score as given by actual rules of distance of certain parts of the protein chains, how the chemical presents itself to the environment, etc... The main point is is that this is not a subjective function, and the exciting side to it is that you might find the one way to represent the molecule that will be the cure people are looking for!

Previously, this has been done by computer, including screen savers across many computers, but now the power of human guesswork is unleashed, so give it a go! (Or just play those other games. Foldit is a little more productive.)

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