David-D--NelsonIf you scan the headlines it reads like a page out of the Book of Revelations.
Maybe the next Darksiders can feature the Black Rider who spreads plague. In the real world our attention is being focused on outbreaks of Ebola in Western Africa.
The infection of missionary relief doctors who were brought back to the US for treatment is what brought the disease to the headlines but however it raises awareness that awareness is good.
Now scientists are working diligently to design proteins from the ground up to fight Ebola. Enter the puzzle loving gamers and Foldit, a project you may have heard of before. It crowd sources gamers to help scientists solve puzzles needed to create proteins helpful in treatments.
“We actually noticed that the scientists don't know where to start” when beginning to design a protein to counter Ebola, said Zoran Popovic, director of the Center for Game Science at the UW, which runs Foldit. “What Foldit is doing is creating three, four, five possible places to start from.”
Will gamers crack the code on Ebola? Perhaps, but the uses for digital entertainment just keep growing and we wish them well on their quest.
Source:
Katherine Long
Seattle Times
That would be absolutely fricken awesome if they did. Then Fox News would have to eat all of our proverbial shorts.
I wonder what the headlines would say IF gamers were the foundation for solving this issue..
"Gamers involved in Ebola epidemic"
^hahaha
The mainstream press won't cover it unless one of the gamers is "addicted" to finding the cure.
Unfortunately you are right. 🙁
I thought those Americans were "cured". How come they don't send some of that back to Africa? Oh wait, money is always at stake. Good luck Africa.
Well, we have the health care in place to help ride it out so able bodied people can survive it. But in some of these African countries, they don't have the facilities or equipment to say, restart a heart, help ventilate, compress artery blockages, etc.
If we can create the protein chains to fight it off biologically, we wouldn't need expensive interventions to get past it. If we can create a vaccine, we can eradicate it. (Until we get a new wave of stupid people acting like vaccines are evil, thus reintroducing previously extremely rare diseases due to a reduced herd inoculation.)
A lot of the drugs being used to 'treat' ebola are experimental with a very short number of samples available. They also take quite a long time to manufacture. The main drug that seems to be having some effect is in development at a very small pharmaceutical company who don't have the ability to churn it out in large quantities, also it takes about 3 weeks to manufacture.
Hopefully other pharma co's can help out making it, but might take a while.
Aren't these the same guys that solve the Aids game too? I think they are. This is kewl tho, and mama said playing games would get you nowhere. Now it's the wife that gives me this speal, can't wait to tell her to eat my proverbial shorts, as Underdog15 so eloquently put it
Well, we couldn't cure cancer with Folding@Home, but maybe Ebola will be an easier nut to crack.
It has to be more effective than dumping ice water on your head, right?
now this is pritty cool coming from the gaming community take that u stupid politians gamers a good people to help to fight a terrible sickness
happy gaming