Scientific novices solve AIDS mystery

[Hot Mega]

:1orglaugh:rofl2::1orglaugh:rofl2: After 10 years a sea of eggheads couldn't solve for a problem goofy gamers cracked in 10 days...

Lawd help us...:1orglaugh (Please continue to excuse me for not buying into the notion that some egghead with ten alphabets succeeding his/her name just wills into being solutions for what they spend decades 'studying':o)

There are computer programs that can help in tracking down the structure of proteins, but for more than ten years this particular simian-based enzyme has stumped scientists. Although computers have plenty of processing power to analyze the enzyme, they lack the spatial reasoning that is necessary to solving enzyme puzzles. That is where gamers come in.

In what University of Washington researchers saw as a longshot at best, they sent a virtual model of the protein to fold.it, a program/website that asks gamers for help in solving complex protein puzzles that it displays like a game. In the case of this particular enzyme, what had stumped the scientific community for more than ten years was solved in ten days.

“This was really kind of a last-ditch effort. Can the Foldit players really solve it?” Firas Khatib, a biochemist at the University of Washington and the lead author on the recently published research paper told MSNBC. “They actually did it in less than 10 days.”

Premium Link Upgrade