Only in the 21st century can you envision a world in which scientists and gamers work together for the common good of mankind.
But that’s precisely what occurred.
For years, researchers were stumped to crack the code of an enzyme in the HIV virus. If only they could, it would unlock ways to not only deliver virus blocking drugs for the HIV virus, but numerous others too.
“We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed,” Firas Khatib of the university’s biochemistry lab said in a press release.
So, an open minded organization in Washington, called Foldit, put out the word to the gaming community and invited some able-minded nerdy types to compete against one another for the grand prize of being awarded five million dollars from Simon Cowell, and a coveted spot in a Pepsi ad–cause it worked out so good for Michael, and there’s just not enough diabetes in the world. Oh wait…that’s X-Factor I’m thinking of.
The saving untold millions of lives reward isn’t 5 million dollars, it’s something much, much better. These heroes get to share their glory alongside some unsung scientific eggheads in the Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Journal that is, at this very moment, sitting on your coffee table…gathering dust under some better mags like US and People.
And come on, we all know that respect is far more rewarding than buying a foreclosed house where Burt Reynolds used to live and basically never having to worry about money again! It’s the struggle that defines us, or so we’re told…by the idle rich who are hiring nannies to provide them with secret love children, while their wives loyally go on supporting them and their sagging pecs, until the truth is revealed, they lose their governorship and have to make Terminator 5: The Final Apocalpyse–I Really Mean it This Time, in holographic 4D. But I do digress.
Gamers had a frolicking good time matching wits with each other and in just three weeks, they unfolded the chains of amino acids using only The Force of their intuition to defeat the evil virus. Actually, they didn’t defeat anything, but they did open the magical doorway to allow drug companies to do something they’re actually good at: providing life-saving cures to the public.
“Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in this week’s paper show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before.” ~ Seth Cooper, one of Foldit’s creators.
Finally, thanks to these nerdy superheroes of tomorrow, the world is safe from close-minded, one-dimensionally thinking scientists, at least for now, and Virtual Reality wins the day!