Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Foldit: Biology for gamers - protein folding online game

I had no idea this existed. Researchers developed an online computer game about protein folding, based on the premise that proteins often fold into the conformation with the lowest energy. Out of millions of possibilities, the human brain is better than a computer at solving this. The program simply shows the amino acid chain as red when it's in a Hugh energy state, and players manipulate the structure to find the lowest energy state. Ultimately, the way they do this is teaching the computer how to solve the puzzle more efficiently. Watch mid-way at 2:16  for a time-lapse of someone solving the puzzle where a protein gradually turns green. Incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axN0xdhznhY&feature=youtube_gdata_player


-Tom.

1 comment:

Search This Blog

Followers