Remember the old SETI project that networked PCs around the world to do complex calculations to find extraterrestrial life? Now that same technology is being used to try to solve a problem that’s affecting us here on Earth.
The Folding@Home project encourages people to download a piece of software that can run on your machine. On its website, the project explains the basics:
Downloading Folding@home and helping us run simulations is the primary way to contribute. These calculations are enormous and every little bit helps! Each simulation you run is like buying a lottery ticket. The more tickets we buy, the better our chances of hitting the jackpot. Usually, your computer will never be idle, but we’ve had such an enthusiastic response to our COVID-19 work that you will see some intermittent downtime as we sprint to setup more simulations. Please be patient with us! There is a lot of valuable science to be done, and we’re getting it running as quickly as we can.
I learned about this from a CNET article, by Stephan Shankland, which also includes an explanatory video by CNET Senior Editor, Andy Altman.