How to help beat cancer, HIV and genetic diseases, playing 5 minutes per day

Despite advances in the field of computer technology, not all tasks can be entrusted with the computer. Often to find the correct answer to the question requires a creative approach of a living person. To this end, several scientific societies set up the game, playing in which you can help the world medicine, and perhaps to write his name in history.

The development of science is best described by the following concept: the resulting information society accumulates around the famous irrefutable facts, laws and axioms until such time as will not go to a new quality. Under the new quality is understood not just the discovery of new laws and revision of existing knowledge on a different level. So it was with the physics of Newton, after - Einstein.

In modern science, there is the most massive accumulation of information in the form of an infinite computer simulation.

A significant part of these problems associated with the medicine. To understand how to actually operate the human body at the molecular level, it is necessary not only describe the already well-known structures and their interactions, but also through all possible theoretical interaction molecules. This knowledge can give a clue to the solution of the most serious medical problems, such as the treatment of genetic diseases and cancer.

Such studies are laborious, and to obtain significant results are simply not enough experts. But some of the scientific community to have solved the problem very elegantly, offering ordinary people without special training to participate in the research process, which can change the world: to create a cure for the deadly disease, to describe in detail the functioning of the human body, and even find a way improve DNA.

Let's see how we can help modern science.

Phylo

The network resource It was created by a team of Bioinformatics Center at McGill University. The game is a puzzle set of browser, which must be combined with each other colored blocks, moving them by one line. We need to get the largest number of pairs of the same color and arrange the squares.

Each square represents the nucleotide (amino acids element). Thus, the result of solving the puzzle - a sort of nucleotide sequences of different taxa, and the purpose of creation of the resource - the search for new study of DNA elements algorithms.

The data obtained are processed University Bioinformatics Center. If the player strategy is more successful than existing computer algorithms, it It used to improve the automatic means to optimize the multiple alignment sequences. Algorithms are used to find the causes of and treatments for many diseases. Among them - the oncological diseases, diseases of the cardiovascular system and many others.

Phylo easily run on most devices and all major browsers (on mobile platforms may need to run a full version of the site). Registration is required, in which you must enter an email address, username and password. There are several languages, among which there are English, French and even Russian.

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EyeWire

Much less a game and more hardcore projectCreated as a result of cooperation of MIT (MIT) and the Institute for Medical Research at the Max Planck. The player sees a real randomly selected three-dimensional picture of the retina segment. Each picture is accompanied by successive images of slices, which extends and gameplay. The party is essential to reconstruct the neuron on a section of mouse clicks or touches the sensor.

In the case of a correct choice of the fragment he is painted green. When error - red. Thus, the real-time mode, the 3D-reconstruction of the neuron. The results of the different parties against one another on the basis of which recreated the most accurate model. After the data is processed by a team of scientists and added to the card connections (connection) Between neurons in the retina.

The next version of the program involves the introduction of link analysis (synapses) Between neurons.

The project is designed to study the view of a person at the neuronal level and the search for an answer to the fundamental question of neuroscience: the structure of neural networks associated with their activity?

In view of the three-dimensional graphics EyeWire - rather "heavy" game. Although in the same way as the previous project, run in any browser with JavaScript enabled. It is highly recommended to use the mouse. For statistical and accounting personal contribution of each player's program requires registration. You can register through your Facebook account on the main page of the project, in addition inventing a nickname (it will appear on all ratings).

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Foldit

Project It was created by the University of Washington team on the basis of earlier developments in the field of distributed computing. The game is quite simple: you have to roll the proposed structure in three-dimensional space of the best (easiest) way. Necessary conditions should read the Help.

There is a special set of tasks that are available for a limited time, and constant puzzles. The game provides detailed clues about the quality of the resulting structure and the possibility of optimization of its sites. You can use a small automated scripts to help speed up gameplay in a particular case. In addition to work on proteins, can create their own algorithms to automate prediction process in a special scripting language, or using a GUI.

Foldit - one of the oldest gaming research projects, this year he was 8 years old. In addition, this is the game is the most successful project in this field: in 2011 only 10 players days were able to decipher the crystal structure of a retroviral protease M-PMV - the virus that causes AIDS in monkeys. This problem put scientists in a deadlock for over 15 years.

This game is designed for computers that are running Windows desktop operating systems, Mac and Linux (there are versions for 32-bit and 64-bit systems). The program takes on a hard disk is 300 MB. You need to download the installation file to install the distribution, and after starting to wait for the latest updates (everything is downloaded automatically). After you need to register using your email address and create a username and password. In the settings you can choose Russian language.

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