
Foldit – A game that contributes to protein folding research - joubert
http://fold.it/portal/info/about
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skybrian
EteRNA is a newer game along the same lines, but for RNA folding. It's a 2D,
browser-based game, so some might find it easier to play.

[http://eterna.cmu.edu/web/](http://eterna.cmu.edu/web/)

~~~
ris
Just a note to everyone: "browser-based" means "flash" here.

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willyg302
Related: this game grew out of Seth Cooper's PhD dissertation [1] "A Framework
for Scientific Discovery through Video Games", which won the ACM Dissertation
Award in 2011. Although a lot of the content is Foldit-centric (protein
algorithms, etc.), it still has a wealth of information on game design and
gamification, well worth looking at for anyone interested in game development.

[1]
[http://grail.cs.washington.edu/theses/Cooper2011PhD.pdf](http://grail.cs.washington.edu/theses/Cooper2011PhD.pdf)

~~~
mrdrozdov
I was lucky enough to see him speak at the University of Michigan
([http://www.cse.umich.edu/eecs/etc/events/showevent.cgi?2665](http://www.cse.umich.edu/eecs/etc/events/showevent.cgi?2665)).

Also, I just finished reading REAMDE, and Fold.it is extremely similar to the
fictional APPIS discussed in the book. It's still a fairly untapped area,
looking to games in order to gain real life advantages. Although besides
Fold.it, ReCaptcha, DuoLingo and the ESP game seem to be using related
strategies to yield results of some degree.

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pharke
Related: You can also donate your spare CPU/GPU cycles to similar projects
with [http://folding.stanford.edu/](http://folding.stanford.edu/)

Someone's even trying to make the points awarded for time spent folding into a
basis for a crypto currency [http://foldingcoin.net/](http://foldingcoin.net/)

~~~
nullc
Last I heard the "folding" distributed computation projects were mostly only
being used to publish papers on distributed computation; and not really to
advance medical science... (In contrast to Foldit)

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jostmey
Truly a great idea. Take human beings who would otherwise be wasting time and
put their brain power to good use, converting couch potatoes of the world into
research scientist. Not only does the lab produce new scientific results, but
it brings thousands of strangers into the fold of protein biochemistry.

~~~
dalke
Another such, for astronomy, is Galaxy Zoo:
[http://www.galaxyzoo.org/](http://www.galaxyzoo.org/) .

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chaostheory
This has been around for about 6 years now. I always wondered what happened to
this project. Good to know that it's still alive, though it's popularity would
skyrocket if they ever released a mobile version on either iOS or Android.

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cookiecaper
This got popular on reddit about a month ago. This thread has a warning about
community moderation policies:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/2n97b1/to_anyone_who...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/2n97b1/to_anyone_who_seen_the_recent_popular_post_about/)

tl;dr Consider that unprofessional moderation may expose your IP address,
email, or other personal information and that others may be encouraged to
harass you before playing.

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iamcreasy
I remember an old news about Foldit from 2011, where Foldit players were able
to decipher the structure of an enzyme that is the key to the way HIV
multiplies.

Source : [http://www.cnet.com/news/foldit-game-leads-to-aids-
research-...](http://www.cnet.com/news/foldit-game-leads-to-aids-research-
breakthrough/)

"Gamers were able to do what biochemists have been trying to do for a decade:
decipher the structure of a protein called retroviral protease, an enzyme that
is key to the way HIV multiplies...People have spatial reasoning skill -
something computers are not yet good at."

Strange thing is, if you Google "foldit HIV" or "foldit AIDS" \- there is no
follow up news. There are some new articles on 2013, but they link straight
back to 2011 articles.

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SapphireSun
[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=2961090759639019608&...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=2961090759639019608&as_sdt=40000005&sciodt=0,22&hl=en)

Cited by 192

EDIT: Although looking through that link, most of the articles are about the
technique rather than the actual discovery. I did find a followup paper:

[http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v30/n2/abs/nbt.2109.html](http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v30/n2/abs/nbt.2109.html)

~~~
iamcreasy
Thank you. The Nature's paper isn't accessible for free, but some
bibliographies are open for all.

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joubert
Would be cool if there were a mobile app.

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iamcreasy
Boinc has mobile app. The current version isn't working on Android 5.x, but
the developers are working on it.

Source : [http://boinc.berkeley.edu/](http://boinc.berkeley.edu/)

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dsfsdfd
Why is machine learning not good for this?

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knowtheory
if you read up on foldit they take a hybrid strategy, for proteins that are
simpler, they are using automated techniques. For proteins that are more
complicated and harder to solve where folding requires satisfying a variety of
conflicting constraints, Foldit is an experiment in using computer assisted
human solving.

