Fold it! - Solve Puzzles for Science

[cheeseshredder]

Foldit is a revolutionary new computer game enabling you to contribute to important scientific research.
http://fold.it/portal/info/science

Gameplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGYJyur4FUA&fmt=18

Someone should create a Redflagdeals folding group, I don't think I can since I created another group, but I can join it after.

[cheeseshredder]

how is this different than folding@home?

Folding@home uses your computer to do the work.

[cheeseshredder]

wouldn't it be more faster and more efficient to let the computer do the work?

I'd assume so, but from their website:

"# Figuring out which of the many, many possible structures is the best one is regarded as one of the hardest problems in biology today and current methods take a lot of money and time, even for computers. Foldit attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans' puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins.

# (Coming soon!) Protein design: Since proteins are part of so many diseases, they can also be part of the cure. Over the summer, we will add new functionality to the game to allow users to design brand new proteins that could help prevent or treat important diseases."

[flygo]

wouldn't it be more faster and more efficient to let the computer do the work?

not always.
sometimes computers can get stuck in local minimums of energy and miss the actual minimum energy folded state.

[cheeseshredder]

Just downloaded and played for real, seems like it uses both computer power + human input.

[xIcewind]

Haha, this is pretty cool -- a game that mimics what I do at work...

[Sepiraph]

I once did protein-folding research for a biology professor while I was still an undergraduate. While it is nice to have lots of computational power to use for something like protein-folding, what's MUCH more important is the actual algorithm used. I am not sure what goes on in the field of bioinformatic anymore, but hopefully they emphasize more on actual understanding instead of just data-collecting.