Protein folding (prion) home computer assistance

This is a distributed computing project to study prions (protein
misfolding), that results in diseases such as Mad Cow, and is believed to
cause Alzheimers and others.

You can download one of the projects programs to make your home computer
part of a supercomputer to study prions. The URL is here:

This looks like a very good thing to volunteer for.

Sir Frederick...

I volunteered.
Anything for Science!
Doing my first "frame". 20 minutes to go.
Doing first "WU". 10 days to go.

Harry Thompson...

More worthwhile distributed computing projects, including I understand,
prion studies.

My best friend is on this one and he didn't even tell me. We're having lunch
tomorrow, and am I going to scold him.

Harry Thompson...

I forgot to mention, the prion project is rosetta@home.

El Castor...

Thanks, I guess I'll try it. I practically wore out my computer on
Seti at Home, and those bug eyed monsters stubbornly refused to reveal
themselves to me. Maybe this time. (-8

Rita...

I downloaded and installed the program but I don't know what it or me
should do now? I got a screen saver when I activated the program.
But nothing to "do"?

Someone please explain.

Rita...

I see now the program is working away -- at something. I
searched the web for and found the purpose is to share one's computer --
that's cool to know one is aiding this research in some
small way.

Harry Thompson...

It's distributed programming, Rita. A complex task of computing protein
folding is broken down into a zillion parts, and each computer in the
network works intensively on a part.

The same thing was (is being?) done on cataloguing DNA.

Similar computing goes on to break cryptographic systems. I think DES (the
erstwhile original Data Encryption Standard) was broken by massive
distributed processing, and the original RSA challenge cipher by Rivest,
Shamir, and Adelman was also finally solved this way several years ago.

I think you should ask just what your computer has been assigned.

El Castor...

If you double click the Folding@Home icon in your systray the screen
saver pops up, and over on the left side of the screen you will see
"Frames completed:" and under that (in my case) 22/250, which I take
to mean that I have completed 25 frames (or segments) out of 250
needed to complete one "Work Unit". Under that is the time needed to
complete one frame, which in my case is currently 19 minutes and 25
seconds. I would be doing a lot more if I had a faster processor, but
alas mine is only an Athlon 2000.

Truth be known, identical work units have probably been assigned to
multiple people. Frames, or maybe entire work units, are reported back
to Stanford as they are done. My guess is that the results are
compared to insure accuracy, and the excess results discarded. I may
be wrong, but as I recall SETI did something like that.

Rita...

Mine says I have completed 1450 out of 5,000 -- but perhaps the units
(frames) are of different size?

It says the current unit the computer is working on will be completed
sometime Thursday. I am not into doing the math to figure out how
much time it takes to complete a frame:)

But, what the hell, nice to know we are doing some small thing for
science.

There is are pages you can access under Statistics to see where you
stand in relation to others in your workgroup. I chose to not choose
a workgroup so I am assigned to one with a couple thousand others.
But using "Find on this page" I can't find my signin name. Perhaps
it has not just been processed yet to be added to the list. Have
you looked yourself up?

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into."
Jonathan Swift