At last, there is hard evidence that video gamers can help save the real world. A group of scientists, after failing to solve the crystal structure of a protein involved in AIDS, challenged players of the protein-folding game Foldit to try.
The players were able to create what the scientists described as models of sufficient quality
for the scientists to complete the structure.
The scientists hail from the University of Washington, A. Mickiewicz University in Poland, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The crowdsourcing effort is described in a research paper, Crystal Structure of a Monomeric Retroviral Protease Solved By Protein Folding Game Players
, published in the current issue of Nature — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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