How Your Computer Can Help Cure Everything
In the grand scheme of things, Your computer is an insanely powerful object. Think of all the matter in our solar system, and then think about how much of it is capable of doing anything. Think of all the things your computer is capable of, were it utilized in the correct manner. Now realize that half of the time, if not more, your computer is sitting on your desk or hidden in some bag doing absolutely nothing.
Well, screw that.
Humans have worked too hard to get where we are to simply let these amazing widgets we slave to create waste away half of the time doing nothing. Enter stage right: Folding@home.
Long story short:
- Proteins make “everything in your body work.”
- Before they can do that, they must “assemble” themselves.
- A protein (a long chain of molecules) assembles itself by folding up into a very specific shape.
- This process is incredibly complicated and truly one of (capital L) Life’s mysteries.
- You can help Stanford University figure out exactly what is up with it, consequently broadening our species’ collective horizon, and helping us to better understand the greatest mystery of all: ourselves.
- How? Let Stanford use your computer for the good of all mankind when it would normally just be figuring out how to display pictures of flying toasters.
You download Folding@home and then your computer uses its number crunching machismo to help figure out how proteins fold when you’re away from it. It’s like a screen saver, but it does something important, instead of rendering the aforementioned winged appliance.
It’s fast, it’s free and it could save us from ourselves one day. More info at Folding@home.
Thanks for the tip, Tommy!
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Computers, Gear, Science, Technology, Web
1 opinion for How Your Computer Can Help Cure Everything
miss kitty
Mar 26, 2007 at 11:28 am
For those that are into outer space more than inner space, there is a similar program available at SETI in which your computer helps search for extra-terrestrial life by analyzing radio waves. http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: