| Ishy said: btw I always hear about folding @ home, is it that protein thing, guys help me out here, what exxctly is it? |
since protein folding is very close to my research... i have a responsibility to let more people know about this field! here's a very brief background.
String theory and particle physics might be big 50 years ago, it is protein folding that is hottest field of theoretical research these days in science--physicists, chemists, biologists, engineers, everybody wants a piece of it. It is, of course, daemonly difficult, and despite decades of research, we really aren't anywhere close to a satisfactory result yet.
Everybody knows vaguely what a protein is. A little more detail: a protein is a molecule (I hope people know what a molecule is). Unlike molecules like water (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), which are very small, proteins are much bigger. Because of that, even though we know what individual proteins are made of, we don't know what it looks like. "Folding" refers to how a protein get to look like the way it does.
One approach is to simulate how a protein folds on a computer. The problem with this approach is that you need a TON of computers, and you can never have enough. The Stanford group thus decided to utilize home computers when people aren't using them, and thus FOLDING@HOME.
Yes, by downloading the software and running the program when you're not using your computer, you really are helping out and actually contributing to solving the protein folding problem!
the Wii is an epidemic.
