Folding@Home: Even you can help cure a disease!

http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/special/DownloadATI.html

[quote="Main" Link]Our goal: to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases


What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease?
Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.
Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.
You can help by simply running a piece of software.
Folding@home is a distributed computing project -- people from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer takes the project closer to our goals. Folding@home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems millions of times more challenging than previously achieved.


What have we done so far?
We have had several successes. You can read about them on our Science page, on our Awards page, or go directly to our Results page.

Want to learn more?
Click on the links on the left for downloads or more information. You can also download our Executive Summary, which is a PDF suitable for distribution. Also, you can learn more by watching recent seminars (Stanford BMI ; Xerox PARC). One can also help by donating funds to the project, via Stanford University.[/quote]

Feel free to add the following code in your signature if you support the Folding@Home Project:

 

Lol they have some thing on my PS3 for that.

 

Basically it donates unused processor cycles.

WARNING: If you have a weak and/or overheating power supply, it is highly suggested you DO NOT leave this on for long periods of time.

 

On the ps3 they request that you leave it on 24/7.

I was like "fuck that" and never downloaded it.

 

They don't request that you leave it on 24/7. This is on the PS3, and works while your PS3 is inactive. I leave my PC on at all times, and choose to - with this option - "Fold" proteins as a part of productive research.

On both the Playstation 3 console, and your PC, this process can be killed at any time to allow for you to have better processing power. On the PS3, the operation is only available while using 'Life with Playstation,' an online, global news tool.

I find this to be a productive tool to society, and will promote it in the future.

The beauty of having the F@H system working over the GPU: Relatively no lag. I'm running a dual-core, and at any given time, surfing the net, I've still only used around 50% of the CPU's power.

Working over the GPU means that all of the absent processing power (not being used by your GPU during normal surfing methods like Myspace, or Sythe.org) can be used for the research of a greater cause. With processing developments in the GPU, the coding that has been used for the F@H GPU project allows for a more complex GPU to process at an average of 700 times that of a single-core PC, running the standard program. Why? The reason is pretty basic, but they've got it written out here in a complex format, for your reading pleasure

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-ATI

 

I fold

4870 kicks ass at it :3

 

Oh I hate you. Is it an X2?

 

hell naw - I only make $12 an hour

it's a 1gb though

 

fffffffffffffffffffffffff

Stuck here with an 8800GTS

 

Being the inquisitive little critter I am, I just couldn't resist looking into this. Sounds intriguing.

 

all your doing it junk calculations, that is split up among thousands of people, this allows certain assets to be used for higher priority task. But you should do it.