Video Game Researchers?

Video game players may help unravel the challenge of protein folding.
The New York Times (8/5, Markoff) reports that "in a match that pitted video game players against the best known computer program designed for the task, the gamers outperformed the software in figuring out how 10 proteins fold into their three-dimensional configurations." Researchers at the University of Washington in 2008 made the game called Foldit "freely available via the Internet," attracting thousands of players. The success of the Foldit players, the researchers report in this week's issue of Nature, "shows that nonscientists can collaborate to develop new strategies and algorithms that are distinct from traditional software solutions to the challenge of protein folding."