Recently, there was a much to do about Gamers finding a cure for AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. That is the way I heard the story. I am sceptical of those kinds of stories so I waited a week and then read up on the deal once the press finished with it. I think a major portion of the population consider gamers as hermaphroditic neo-Nazis. They are placed up there with Julian Assange, hackers and the Oslo killer, Anders Breivik. The mainstream populous does not understand and therefore trust computers, video games or online stuff. Technology is moving very fast and acceptance of things not understood is slow.
The real import accomplishment is that there is a highly sophisticated game that solves real problems and top notch gamers want to play it. There is a host of "game" software out there that are deeply involved in the chemical and scientific world. There is software that can predict chemicals compounds and formulas based on inputs of building block chemicals. Software predicts the impact of the tsunamis, oil spills and hurricanes. A person with a gifted mind no longer has to join big business, big brother or political action committees to develop his talents. He can start his own career and give the fickle finger to the establishment. The accomplishments of the gamers and hackers reach far beyond this event. Science is great.
The process by which living beings create the primary structure of proteins, protein biosynthesis, is reasonably well understood, as is the means by which proteins are encoded as DNA. Determining how the primary structure of a protein turns into a functioning three-dimensional structure—how the molecule "folds"—is more difficult; the general process is known, but predicting protein structures is computationally demanding.
Foldit is an attempt to apply the human brain's natural three-dimensional pattern matching abilities to this problem. Current puzzles are based on well-understood proteins; by analyzing the ways in which humans intuitively approach these puzzles, researchers hope to improve the algorithms employed by existing protein-folding software. In 2008, the Foldit project submitted solutions to the CASP protein structure prediction contest; results were announced in early 2009.
Foldit is a mix of crowd sourcing and distributed computing. -- Wikipedia
The real import accomplishment is that there is a highly sophisticated game that solves real problems and top notch gamers want to play it. There is a host of "game" software out there that are deeply involved in the chemical and scientific world. There is software that can predict chemicals compounds and formulas based on inputs of building block chemicals. Software predicts the impact of the tsunamis, oil spills and hurricanes. A person with a gifted mind no longer has to join big business, big brother or political action committees to develop his talents. He can start his own career and give the fickle finger to the establishment. The accomplishments of the gamers and hackers reach far beyond this event. Science is great.
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