FOR SCIENCE!
If you haven’t heard of Folding@home, you’re not doing your part to help mankind fight disease. At the bleeding edge of medical research, incredible amounts of processing power are needed to crunch the numbers and run the simulations that help researchers develop new medicines and treatments for a huge variety of ailments, and the need for this power is only ever expanding.
Not every scientific research team can afford a supercomputer, though, so distributed computing projects are the next best thing: A vast network of systems around the world, volunteering surplus memory, CPUs, and GPUs to help chip-in to help solve massive, complex problems.
Folding@home is one such project, leveraging the power of thousands of idling computers to simulate protein dynamics and aid in the fight against everything from Alzheimer’s to prion diseases to COVID-19. Popular looter-shooter
Borderlands3 started a similar project recently, where completing a minigame helps map out the human gut microbiome.
F@H is solely reliant on volunteers independently allowing the program to access and utilize their system. It’s a relatively simple process: Small work orders are created from chunks of a larger simulation and sent out to participating computers, which complete them and then return them to the central database servers before receiving more. The project is based out of Washington University in St. Louis, but anyone in the world with an internet connection can set up their system to contribute. Online leaderboards and “teams” of participants add a competitive element to the numbercrunching, with cadres of PC-building enthusiasts often lending the power of their PCs to score points. If you’re thinking about participating— and it’s super easy to do so; just download the tool from the F@H website—then why not show your colors with the MaximumPC crew at team #11108?