And still “they” say that games are bad or playing games is a criminal act. Now gamers have achieved something that should bring people, like “experts” of Fox News, to their senses. They have solved the mystery of a protein that AIDS like viruses use to reproduce. And guess what? Where scientists were baffled for decades, gamers succeeded in just three weeks.
Using the game Foldit, gamers cracked the structure of an enzyme called Retroviral Protease (RP). This Enzyme plays a vital role in the multiplication of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). With gamers’ success, scientists will now be able to create an antidote to prevent Retroviral Protease from spreading.
Foldit is a game developed by researchers at University of Washington to tackle scientific problems. Developers believe that since computers are not good at spatial reasoning skills, they built a platform to bring the power of humans and computers at one place. The main aim of the game/software is to convert these problems into competitive games. Players were then required to use their “gaming skills” to solve these puzzles. Predicting the structure of the RP enzyme was one of the puzzles gamers had to solve and they accomplished that task in mere three weeks.
So, once again, the day is saved, thanks to the awesome gamers. Now is the time for the gamers all around the world to keep their heads high and tell their parents that games are not a waste after all.
Complete report telling how gamers succeed in cracking RP enzyme has been published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. Click here to view complete report.
