Sunday, December 14, 2008

Biology Geeks of the World, Rejoice

There's a protein-folding game you can download!

You can play it by yourself, online or off, or you can choose to compete with other players (online) to see who can find the best configuration for a given protein fastest.

(Because of the time component, I am unlikely ever to try PVP protein-folding. I am very slow at games in general).

But the best part? Just by playing the game, you're helping the researchers who created it determine whether a big group of human players can predict protein structures better than existing computer simulations.

The one gripe I have with it is that it doesn't tell you very much about how to play. I just started by wiggling stuff around more or less randomly, and then going with what seemed to work.

(I think I might solve puzzles exactly like the computers they're hoping to replace. D'oh!)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That game is fun!
Thanks! :)