Sep 19, 2011

A Triumph for Foldit!

Dedicated readers will remember my post about Foldit about a year ago. Today they have a real triumph to announce! AIDS researchers have been trying for ten years to understand the folding pattern of an enzyme from a retrovirus found in rhesus monkeys, in the belief that understanding that might give broader insight into how to stop other retroviruses. Top scientists couldn't do it. Supercomputers couldn't do it. But a couple dozen videogame players did it in ten days.