Use Your PS3 To Fight Cancer: Update
Earlier last year we reported that Sony has teamed up with Stanford University to harness the processing power of networked PS3s to process complex protein folding calculations to cure diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cystic fibrosis, and various cancers. The project is called Folding@home, and has been available on Windows, OSX and Linux for about half a year already, with over a million PC’s networked.
Now with the March 23rd firmware update, PS3 users can get in on the folding action. The PS3 can blaze through the calculations as the cell processor is almost 10 times faster than your average gaming PC. The Folding@home application cannot run while you are playing a game or accessing a media disk. You can enable the program with a click of a button, or set it to automatically start when your system is resting. PS3 owners who are feeling a little guilty about spending close to a grand on controllers, games, and the system, do something worthwhile with that black processing beast sitting next to your television. Do your part by lending your machine to a great cause.
PS3 CANCER FIGHTING SERVICE UPDATE [The Last Boss]
[via B&B&P&S]
Toots
Posted to Video Games on 16 March 2007
· Comments (8)
Other stuff like this: cancer, cell, disease, folding at home, ps3
Great idea. Count me in!
I love to see more and more sites reporting on this story. It's just flat out a GOOD thing, and I'm eager to take part!
I work in the chemistry dept of the professor who came up with this. He's a really cool, down-to-earth (well, as much as down-to-earth as a prof can be) guy. I'm excited to see that the PS3 is finally getting in on this. If the PS3 ever reaches the number of users that the PS2 has, this will be a huge boon to biophysical research.
(And while I'm normally not this anal, I have to speak up since I go there. There's no 'd' in Stanford, Toots. :) )
I also have to say, and this is arguably more important to us as well, that there's a variant of this project called FightAIDS@home. I've got it running on my home computer and laptop while I'm at work, and have crunched a TON of numbers on it. While I'm a SETI@home kind of guy, I would rather cure the disease that causes AIDS than meet little green men.
If you guys are considering running this program to fight cancer on your machines, please take a moment to consider the fight against AIDS as well.
(I have a vested interest in this; my partner is HIV-positive--this is one of my ways of constantly supporting him)
Here's the link: http://fightaidsathome.scripps.edu/
As hard as I try, I'm not the best speller. Thanks everyone for the heartfelt responses. Also, thanks Squeech for sharing about the FightAIDS@home project, and your current relationship. These projects have amazing potential in the field of biophysical research. I encourage everyone to pitch in and offer their idle processors to science.
And thank you, Toots, for posting the article!
The devil may find work for idle hands, but miracles might be found by idle procs! :D
Thank you gay gamers for posting this in general and to Squeech, thank you for posting that link.
Personally this means a lot to me.
This is just Sony trying to get into Heaven at the end of their life, after scorning gamers across the globe. Not unlike grandma. Keep kicken' angels Nana.