Computers are cool. 🦾 You can use them to stitch together memes, play games, and snoop on your friends' lives. Some people apparently even work on them. But did you know they can also fight COVID-19 (coronavirus) and other diseases? And we're not talking about supercomputers in ultra-modern laboratories of American scientists. We're talking about your machines, Vikings! From beat-up laptops 💻 that would have fallen apart long ago if not for the stickers you've plastered on them, to neon-lit gaming 👾 setups costing millions.
#stayathome is behind us, it's time for #shareyourcomputationalpowerwiththefightagainstCOVID19! Because that's what the Folding@home program, initiated by Stanford University, is all about. In each of the millions of computers worldwide, there lies a magical force: computational power. Yes, it lies dormant 💤, because we very rarely use 100% of our machines' processor power. Meanwhile, every second of this partial idleness could turn into a second bringing humanity closer to overcoming the coronavirus pandemic. All it takes is for our computer, in its free moments, to calculate this and that for scientists researching COVID-19. 👩🔬
Do you hear that hum? That's your processor eager to save the world.
How does it work?
After installing the appropriate software, your computer connects to Stanford University's servers in 🇺🇸 the USA 🇺🇸, downloads a portion of material requiring calculations, does what's needed, and sends the results back. All of this happens unobtrusively, as the program runs in the background with the lowest possible priority. This means saving the human race will never interfere with your evening game of solitaire. 🃏 The most it might do is slightly increase your electricity bill. By a few cents. Not dollars. Cents.
What will our computers actually be doing for this whole Stanford endeavor?
They'll be simulating. 🙃 If that word brings to mind Friday mornings before going to school – that's not the kind of simulation we're talking about. Researchers are conducting complex simulations of protein folding processes. As is well known (if you did go to school instead of simulating), proteins perform a multitude of functions in the body – and these depend on how a given molecule folds. If it folds incorrectly, we get diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. The SARS-CoV-2 virus 🦠, or corona 👑 for its enemies, is also made of proteins. Acting on the principle of "know your enemy," the better scientists understand this nasty bug, the faster they'll be able to develop ways to fight it. And that's where your computer comes in, all dressed in white – maybe it will help conduct the simulation that hits the bullseye and enables the creation of a vaccine? 💉
How to put your machine to work?
It's as simple as can be:
- Go to https://foldingathome.org/start-folding/.
- Download and install the special program.
- Create an account.
- Join the Mobile Vikings team with number 265933.
- Get back to your daily routine…
- …and the entire crew of our brave Viking computers will be folding proteins and fighting the virus! ⚔️
Do you hear that hum? That's your processor eager to save the world. 🤖🦸🌍
