One million PS3 owners Folding@home

[Shrygue]

via Computer and Video Games


The Folding@home program aids the study of protein folding in order to help scientists attempting to tackle the development of a number of diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, cystic fibrosis and certain forms of cancer.

Mass uptake of the program by PS3 users has enabled researchers to utilize the processing power of hundreds of thousands, and now a million, PlayStation 3 consoles.

Sony says that one million PS3-owning participants equates to around 3,000 PS3 owners registering per day, or two new registered users every minute worldwide, since March 2007, although PS3 users attempting to participate in the program have had a few issues recently.

"Since partnering with SCEI, we have seen our research capabilities increase by leaps and bounds through the continued participation of Folding@home users," said Vijay Pande, associate professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home project lead.

"Now we have over one million PS3 users registered for Folding@home, allowing us to address questions previously considered impossible to tackle computationally, with the goal of finding cures to some of the world's most life-threatening diseases.

"We are grateful for the extraordinary worldwide participation by PS3 and PC users around the globe," he added.

[Triv1um]

Ive done 1 full protein fold (8 hours) while sleeping. Cant be arsed.

[Gene]

Ive done 1 full protein fold (8 hours) while sleeping. Cant be arsed.

Yeah I sometimes leave it on overnight. What the hell, if I'm not using it, they can go ahead and cure cancer.

[tutting]

I've been folding on my PC for some time and have enabled it on the PS3 as well. You never know, you may need their research if you're really unlucky.