Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Warcraft or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.
Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, Foldit is a fun-for-purpose video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — using a set of online tools.
To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.
(READ the AFP story in Raw Story)
Incredible! Or maybe not…. perhaps this is how many of our biggest information based problems will be solved. Go techies! From a fellow Nerdette 🙂