Online gamers strike major blow in battle against AIDS

A bunch of gamers have untangled the structure of a key protein in the virus that causes AIDS, a mystery that has left scientists stumped for decades. It took just three weeks for players of online game Foldit to predict an accurate model for the protein – a type of enzyme called a retroviral protease that has a critical role …

[Anonymous Coward]

Up with this kind of thing!

See title.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute...

...I'm not sure I understand. This article didn't mention twitter being involved in a socially beneficial event, and I know that's not possible. And what are these gamers? There isn't even a hashtag. You need to make your articles more understandable.

[Godwhacker]

This needs to be on Steam right now.

[Guido Esperanto]

/title

An article that doesnt paint gamers as being do'ers of evil, and mass murderers in hiding....about bloody time.

nice job on the foldit team to actually create a piece of "entertainment" that harnesses the collective power of gamers worlwide for the good of mankind.

Its a small step, but enough to start the gamer naysayers to re-consider their thoughts that its a "waste of time"

Gamers 1 - 1 Society

[Anonymous Coward 101]

The only thing worse than being a mass murderer...

...is helping to cure AIDS - God's way of destroying prostitutes, homosexuals and drug addicts.

Gamers are truly despicable.

[CD001]

Why downvote a troll, with an obvious troll icon?

What's worrying is that there are actually people that really, genuinely think like that...

[Old Handle]

Why downvote a troll?

Because it wasn't clever or amusing in any way. If you're going to troll, at least be interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow

This is a perfect example of why technology is awesome.

[Thomas 4]

Almost

This is a perfect example of why gamers are awesome.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Cheers to them

Now there is a game worth playing! Excellent manners to give the gamers full credit.

[JakeyC]

I propose a new game - "hunt the Higgs"

Bit like a multiplayer version of Where's Wally (that's "Waldo" for our American chums).

Also, Paris because she's a PROtease, geddit?! Not sure if she's retroviral, however...

[Mondo the Magnificent]

No mom....

..I'm not playing brain melting, time wasting games in my room! I'm busy saving the world!

[sisk]

And to think, my mother tried to tell me growing up that video games were a waste of time. Kudos to the completely awesome brains behind and in Foldit. I'll be looking that game up now.

[b166er]

Win

[Stroppy]

The El Reg Effect

The El Reg effect has struck again - fold.it website down.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll just leave this here....

http://wowaids.ytmnd.com/

[miknik]

If I cure AIDS playing online games...

...then I'd better get a hell of a lot of XP for that.

[The Grinning Duck]

You automatically unlock the Boffin Pro perk, and Labcoat cammo.

[Shadowmanx2009]

Hot & Cold Fusion

How about a game to discover ways to build an affordable, workable nuclear fusion plant, within the next 5 years?

[mmm mmm]

Impressive.

[Anonymous Coward]

And one other thing...

I wonder: Did the guy who finally solved the last piece of the puzzle get a message saying, "A WINNER IS YOU"?

[Winkypop]

Next, we need one to....

....help make motorway food edible.

Yay for science!

[Anonymous Coward]

Games are good...

...after all most of us now know how to kill a mutant zombie hoard or an invading alien species, this is just another one to add to the list.

[Anonymous Coward]

ALL YOUR BASE-PAIR ARE BELONG TO US

Nice to hear some pro-gamer stories.

[dcdc]

It's based on code from rosetta as used in rosetta@home which can always use more cpus: http://boinc.bakerlab.org/

;)

[John Smith 19]

Has to be said

"Nice move, gamer."

[Hairy]

Awesome article

All I can say is... Cooooool!

[BasevaInc]

So Bobby how was your day ??

We busted a protein & killed an enzyme and we saw Paris and went for a ProTease!

What!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing...

I got non-lubricated condoms, no one likes sticky balloons.