An experimental science project reaches epic proportions courtesy of Sony's powerful processor.
While gamers endlessly bicker about which system will come out on top of the console war, a group of inventive scientists at Stanford University are concerned with a very different kind of battle - the fight against incurable diseases.
The university's Folding@home project focuses on protein folding, a chemical process that may hold the keys to unlocking the mysteries of diseases like Alzheimer's, Cystic Fibrosis, Hodgkin's and various other cancers. The team has created a program that simulates the nearly infinite number of ways proteins can fold, a system that requires a massive amount of computational power.
Maximum PC: Walking into the Pande Lab at Stanford University is somewhat of a hardcore geek’s ultimate dream. This is, after all, where the real work gets done—or should we say, work units. For the various desktop systems and consoles scattered around the area are all a part of a larger initiative that likely you and I, as well as Stanford graduate students, researchers from around the globe, and consortiums of geeks and enthusiasts alike, have all contributed to.
Dr. Vijay Pande, an associate professor of chemistry, structural biology, and computer science over at Stanford—as well as the longtime director of the Folding@Home distributing computing project, which his aptly titled “Pande Lab” oversees—estimates that around 400,000 systems actively “fold” at the current moment. Given the program’s fairly linear growth of around 40,000 new systems a year, Folding@Home should be able to push past half a million “connected” PCs easily before its crystal anniversary.
Amazing project.
Amazing feature on PS3 to help the project.
Critical Gamer writes: There has been a lot of hype about the power of the Cell processor residing inside the PlayStation 3. Whether or not we will see its full power being exploited remains to be seen, but it has been put to good use by medical researchers in America with the folding@home project.
I’m sure a lot of PS3 owners are unaware of the program folding@home residing on their PS3. This little piece of software has been designed by boffins at Stanford University in the USA, and is used to perform mathematical calculations of proteins when they misfold in the human body. I know you’re probably wondering what I’m wittering on about, so here’s what it is all about.
My problem is I can't do anything with my PS3 when using folding@home if it was in the background I would use it more
Microsoft should be supporting folding@home as well on the 360. Bill Gates is always seen donating money to charity, so why not help with this project? They should try and get it integrated into the OS of PC's, Mac's and all the consoles, and have it running in the background.
I use my console for gaming and blu-rays, sorry. I also turn off my console when it's not being used for said activities.
How a couple of egos and extrinsic motivations turned Folding@home into a bloody cold war competition, where work units were as valuable as kill counts.
lls good post. Funny story. I'm tempted to start a Folding war with some of my buddies now :)
yay, at least the media is spreading the word, maybe we'll get some more recruits.
People that have lost someone from one of these horrible diseases will look at this and really appreciate what Sony have done with the PS3. (even if there aren't many games out for it yet) I for one am one of those people.
I hope the 360 gets on with it and adds it to their system too.