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PS3 Owners To Simulate Gene Folding

Posted by Zonk on from the so-far-we-have-not-found-the-science dept.

fistfullast33l writes "According to IGN UK, the next version of Playstation firmware will include a joint venture from Stanford University and Sony called Folding@Home. Similar to the infamous SETI@Home project, Folding@Home will be an idle application that participates in a simulation that 'aims to map the way that genes change shape (or fold), so they can be studied by scientists and, potentially, cure illnesses such as Parkinson's or a variety of cancers.' The application will download a 'work unit' that it will unravel to completion, update Stanford's servers, and then download the next unit and continue." We've previously discussed the client; it will be available as an update at the end of the month, and should appear on your cross-media bar once installed.

6 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Tis a shame... by Raynor · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Usually you release distributed computing applications on computers which have a large market share... Meh, I'll be doing my part though (when i'm not playing FF-(fill in the blank))

    --
    "Dictator Flakes. They WILL be delicious."
    1. Re:Tis a shame... by king-manic · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Academic research has a much greater chance of being widely distributed and public domain then corprate research. So someone will do it eventually. I'd prefer it to be a university who will at least share their findings thena propriatary research group which would hoard their results much tighter.

      --
      "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
    2. Re:Tis a shame... by Hellkitten · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I pay the energy bill for cycles used to crunch genetic mapping data that will be used by corporations to develop drugs for lifelong treatment (like they'd develop a cure when they could profit more from treatment?) so that when I'm sick, I can pay a few thousand dollars a month to afford the pills?

      For some of us that's not entirely accurate. A large number of homes around the world are heated electrically during winter. All the power you would normally use for electrical heating you could just as well run through a computer of some sort (a game console is just a specialized computer). The energy will eventually end up as heat (a cpu is just a special electrical oven that also does computations). Essentially you get the cycles for free (minus minimal wear and tear on the computer) if the computer would just sit idle and you would use that power to heat your home anyway

      There are several distibuted computing projects around. Read through their policy about the use of the results, some of them may suit you.

      --
      - We are the slashdot. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be moderated -
  2. Why in a firmware update? by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Stupid question maybe, but why would this be distributed as a firmware update and not as a downloadable 'game' from the Playstation(R)Network Store?

    I can understand (and have commented before on the need for) a firmware update to add 'applications' or some such option to the XMB for non-game software, but I can't see that the software itself should require this distribution method.

    Anyone able to shed light on this?

    --
    - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  3. Re:Chromatin by charon_1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That is a completely different type of "folding". Protein folding is incredibly complex: "it takes about a day to simulate a nanosecond (1/1,000,000,000 of a second). Unfortunately, proteins fold on the tens of microsecond timescale (10,000 nanoseconds). Thus, it would take 10,000 CPU days to simulate folding -- i.e. it would take 30 CPU years!" Chromatin doesn't "fold" DNA, it just bundles it into compact fibers during mitosis/meiosis. The purpose of chromatin is to bundle DNA into chromosomes and also to regulate which genes are expressed, which is fairly well understood and predictable, while the folding of proteins is incredibly hard to predict.

  4. Re:Infamous? by fistfullast33l · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wrote the article summary. I probably meant famous but for some reason infamous sounds better in my head. I will point out that maybe SETI@Home can be considered infamous in that so many people used it on their computers and it never really accomplished anything. It was billed as the first large-scale distributed programming project, but it probably was one of the most pointless applications ever. Not to mention I could never understand the interface or believe that you were actually doing anything. This, I can buy more into - we know how finite the human gene is.