In the most recent Wired Magazine issue, I stumbled upon many nerdy things that I wanted to share. Of course, I'm way too busy and lazy to do that. Anyway, a supernerd team at the University of Washington-Seattle launched an online game in 2008 to sort of collect human brains to solve one of science's biggest mysteries, proteins.
The game is called Foldit and I'm sure many nerds have already gotten wind of this. Players are dealt intricate puzzles in which they have to string together amino acids, sidechains, and other mumbo jumbo to guess the shape of proteins. Keep in mind that many of these players are merely gamers, not PhD's with years of experience.
Foldit connects this great weave of supernerd neurons as a strategy to discover millions of proteins. Gamers who help solve puzzles can essentially share credits with actual scientists behind the project.
Ain't that neat?!
