Hello fellow proud OCNers.
It would appear to me that the message 'fold to cure Cancer' has become almost annoying to some of you. Indeed, it is a simplistic, and somewhat deceptive description of what folding does. Turning on a folding client doesn't mean that cancer is magically going to be cured and we can all celebrate our 'massive contribution'.
The truth is folding isn't a massive contribution to cancer research, but rather a small piece of the puzzle for research of many diseases. Folding helps people see how proteins fold, but more relevantly how they mis-fold. It is this mis-folding that causes problems on a larger scale, and manifests a wide variety of diseases.
Stanford developed Folding@Home as a volunteer system to gain the kind of computing power they needed to simulate all of this. They realized that 'fold to cure cancer' wasn't a compelling enough reason to start folding, so they introduced the points system to 'reward' the folders. This is where the competition (and the addictive fun) comes in.
The OCN folding team (team 37726) is currently 3rd in the world. We have no challengers for 3rd place at the moment, but we are making no headway on [H]ardforum or EVGA (#2 and #1) either.
What we as a team want is to be number 1. We need your help to achieve this. We're not asking for 24/7 folding from everyone (although that is also acceptable
). Any folding at all helps.
You can join us for a Foldathon. We have one starting tomorrow at noon Eastern. Foldathon Link
Hey, if you like that you could check out the Team Competition. TC Link
As a member of OCN, this is already YOUR team. Your team needs your help. Fold, and help make OCN #1!
Thank you.
It would appear to me that the message 'fold to cure Cancer' has become almost annoying to some of you. Indeed, it is a simplistic, and somewhat deceptive description of what folding does. Turning on a folding client doesn't mean that cancer is magically going to be cured and we can all celebrate our 'massive contribution'.
The truth is folding isn't a massive contribution to cancer research, but rather a small piece of the puzzle for research of many diseases. Folding helps people see how proteins fold, but more relevantly how they mis-fold. It is this mis-folding that causes problems on a larger scale, and manifests a wide variety of diseases.
Stanford developed Folding@Home as a volunteer system to gain the kind of computing power they needed to simulate all of this. They realized that 'fold to cure cancer' wasn't a compelling enough reason to start folding, so they introduced the points system to 'reward' the folders. This is where the competition (and the addictive fun) comes in.
The OCN folding team (team 37726) is currently 3rd in the world. We have no challengers for 3rd place at the moment, but we are making no headway on [H]ardforum or EVGA (#2 and #1) either.
What we as a team want is to be number 1. We need your help to achieve this. We're not asking for 24/7 folding from everyone (although that is also acceptable
). Any folding at all helps.You can join us for a Foldathon. We have one starting tomorrow at noon Eastern. Foldathon Link
Hey, if you like that you could check out the Team Competition. TC Link
As a member of OCN, this is already YOUR team. Your team needs your help. Fold, and help make OCN #1!
Thank you.
