Well I did it.

I've always loved science. From third grade on I always wanted to be a scientist.

I was actually a physics student in college until I found computer science more alluring. That's way back when computers were the giant electronic brains that only the priesthood (computer programmers) knew how to communicate with. I loved that experience.

But ever since I've wanted to get back to science and specifically physics. Being a busy father and husband doesn't quite permit that luxury yet, but at least I can participate in a small way.

I recently bought a computer, nothing powerful or expensive but a good average computer. Last night I downloaded software to my computer that allows it to participate in a grid of computers doing analysis for scientific research, specifically protein folding.

What the software does is use your PC's idle computer time to do calculations for modeling how proteins in your human cells fold up in their final shape for use. Proteins are the chemical machines that do the work in living cells. The proteins are assembled by stitching amino acids together. Once a protein is completed, it is released into the cell where it folds up in a specific shape. Its shape allows it do its chemical work. Its shape results from the final outcome of the electric forces of each of its atoms pushing on each other until a balance is found resulting in the final shape. What the software does is simulate the physics of each nanosecond how the atoms are pushing on each other to get to the balanced shape.

There are so many calculations that there isn't a super computer on the entire planet that could do the calculations in a reasonable amount of time for even one protein. Therefore, the researchers decided to use grid computing to parse the work out to anyone's computer who wants to participate. There are approximately 400,000 people participating and they now have more computing power than all the supercomputers on the planet put together. Even Sony Playstations can download the software and participate and many people are doing just that. In fact the Playstations have great computing power. For the newer PC's the sofware is using all the CPU cores and even the graphics processors to do the work.

I downloaded the software to my PC last night and it completed its first calculation assignment in about three hours. The software runs in the background. It didn't interfere or slow my use in any way. In fact I had to keep checking on it to see if it was still running. It makes me happy. Sometimes its the small things.

The researchers are now focusing more on misshapen proteins. Many diseases are caused by misshapened proteins.

The research and computing program are run from Stanford University. Below is their web site.

http://folding.stanford.edu/