Foldit is a revolutionary new computer game enabling you to contribute to important scientific research. This page describes the science behind Foldit and how your playing can help.
I saw this on PA the other day but was scared to click the link then for fear of taking out their server. Looks interesting. Has anyone played this and evaluated the fun factor?
Raph must be gleeful -- I remember him talking on an AGC panel a few years ago about how games should cure cancer and the other panelists looking at him like he was batshit insane.
Yeah, trying it just now, the server was too busy to let me log in. I made it most of the way through the singleplayer tutorial, though.
I don't know that it was fun, per se, but it was interesting. I can see it not appealing to puzzle people, since it feels less like solving a puzzle and more like just frobbing the thing around until you get a good result, in some cases...Which makes sense, given what it's trying to accomplish. If they could make the game mechanics of Peggle do this, however, cancer would be fucked. And I would have my goddamn food pills and lucite jetpack.
Ah, well, no cancer gaming redemption for me! Back to my hell-bent path of dissipation and booze-soaked rampages. Or summat.
"They started to resist with a crust that was welded with human brain and willpower."