All In The Name Of ScienceAll In The Name Of Science

Some people donate their bodies to science. Users of screensaver Folding@Home donated the power of their idle computers. Using about 40,000 Windows, Macintosh, and Linux computers linked via the Internet over three months, scientists at Stanford University mapped the folding sequence of proteins, which could give insight into diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Without distributed computing, the complex mathematical calculations would have required expensive supercomputers, says Christopher Snow, a Stanford grad student and project scientist. Up next: a distributed-computing project related to cancer mutations.