Folding@Home
6-20-03 | Clint Davis
What is it?
Folding@Home is a project run by Stanford University in order to better understand how proteins "fold." Folding is where a protein reacts to something. All proteins fold in someway. If they fold wrongly it can lead to bad things. Cancer, Alztimers, and Mad Cow Disease are just a few examples of what can happen if proteins misfold.
How does it work?
To understand how proteins fold requires massive amounts of computing power. Folding@Home uses distributed computing in order to quicken things up. By breaking a large project down into many smaller ones it decreases the time it takes to simulate a protein.
Do you want to help?
It is easy to participate. Go to the Folding@Home website and download the software to run it. It will run on your computer in the background. If you have a broadband connection it will automatically download and send the results. If you are on a modem you can set it to ask you if you are connected.
Need more information?
The Folding@Home site has many answers to your questions. Also if you like there are many team pages that can help. Overclockers.com, Overclockers Austrailia, and HardOCP just to name a few.
Final Thoughts
I hope you will decide to participate in the Folding@Home project. If you decide to help, I also hope you will fold for Team 32, the Overclockers.com team. If you do you can try to out fold me. I'm Clint on the stats chart. I hope to see you there.
Links