The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: May 25, 2008

Official News page 8


REAL LIFE NEWS: HOW PLAYING A GAME CAN AID RESEARCH

by Hazed

Games are frivolous, they are a waste of time, and you should be doing something much more important with your time. I'm sure you have heard that said, whether by your parents, teachers, friends, lovers or spouses. Well now you can play a game that contributes to important scientific research, so that your playing is no longer a waste of time.

Foldit is all about the structure of proteins. You have proteins inside every cell in your body, doing the work of breaking down food to power your muscles, sending signals, and transporting nutrients through your blood. There are lots of different varieties of proteins, but they are all made of the same stuff: a long chain of joined-together amino acids. There are 20 different types of amino acids, and they join up in various ways to make chains - those chains are proteins.

Those chains don't stay stretched up in a straight line, but they are folded up, scrunched into little balls. Each type of protein folds into a different shape, and its that shape which specifies the function of the protein.

The Foldit game 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. That way, we can learn the structure of the different proteins, which is key to understanding how they work. In particular, scientists want to know how proteins are affected by disease, and how specific drugs can be targetted to specific proteins.

Ok, that's enough of the science bit. Leaving aside the fact that you are doing some good by playing the game, Foldit actually is fun. You download some software (for Windows or OS X) and then play, solving puzzles to do with protein shapes. I don't usually recommend any other game than Fed, but this one is fun and has that added attraction of being useful too.

Take a look at http://fold.it/portal/adobe_main/.


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