From The New York Time: Video Gamers Tackle the Complexities of Protein Folding
It turns out that, when enough gamers work together, the same skills that we use to beat games like Tetris and Picross 3D can outperform high-end research computers and modelling software. The problems of understanding protein folding is something which can be mapped onto 3D puzzles, which our meat brains seem to be very good at solving. Yay, us!In a match that pitted video game players against the best known computer program designed for the task, the gamers outperformed the software in figuring out how 10 proteins fold into their three-dimensional configurations.
Proteins are essentially biological nano-machines that carry out myriad functions in the body, and biologists have long sought to understand how the long chains of amino acids that make up each protein fold into their specific configurations.
In May 2008, researchers at the University of Washington made a protein-folding video game called Foldit freely available via the Internet. The game, which was competitive and offered the puzzle-solving qualities of a game like Rubik’s Cube, quickly attracted a dedicated following of thousands of players.
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