Sci-Fi News and Reviews

Gaming for Science?

As an avid gamer and science buff, I frequent various news sources to keep up on progress and innovations, since I find them interesting. This story, in particular, really inspired me.

Here it is in a nutshell: A team of doctoral students, scientists and professional game developers have created a game ("Foldit") that has the player three-dimensionally fold proteins. This is opposed to the standard grid-based simulations (like Rosetta@home, which was developed by some of the same team members) in which people allow their computers to sift through data and transmit the results back to a central server. The idea of this model is that a complicated protein might take years of processing time to unravel, but "...people, using their intuition, might be able to home in on the right answer much more quickly."

David Baker, one of the lead scientists, says that "...the intuitive skills that make someone good at playing Foldit are not necessarily the ones that make a top biologist...I imagine that there's a 12-year-old in Indonesia who can see all this in their head."

I really think this is the way to solve complicated problems. I love the fact that they recognize that this type of spatial recognition is better done by a human brain. Heck, there is probably an autistic child that will be able to provide us with some amazing medical advances, if only given the chance. (As a side note, read this Wired article on the way an autistic mind works - it's eye-opening!).

For more information about the project, visit http://fold.it/. Maybe you are the one who can play this game...and someday win a Nobel Prize!

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Posted by Fred on May 8, 2008 4:08 PM
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