Find a Cure for Cancer
Thread Starter
Administrator
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 20,274
Likes: 4
From: Toronto, Canada
Hey all. Did you know you could use your computer to help fight cancer? All you need to do is donate a few spare processing cycles. Intel and United Device has put together a program that will let you participate. I've even created a team you can join "S2000 Owners".
The first step is to download and install the UD software on your PC by clicking here
After that, Click this link to join the S2000 team
Give it a try and use your spare computing cycle for good.
The first step is to download and install the UD software on your PC by clicking here
After that, Click this link to join the S2000 team
Give it a try and use your spare computing cycle for good.
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 640
Likes: 0
From: Monterey
CThree- that is very noble of you to start this. I'm curious from a technical standpoint however. The software you download states that it runs when your computer is on and then returns data to their servers when you are connected to the internet. I wonder what is being done on your computer and then being sent to thier servers? It just seems a little weird to me. Anybody have any ideas??
Thread Starter
Administrator
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 20,274
Likes: 4
From: Toronto, Canada
The details of the project are on the http://www.ud.com site. Basically they are using your computer to do a massive search through billions of chemical compounds to see which ones interact best with a given protein. That is the idea anyway. They send a batch of data to your computer for it to munch on. Then when it's done it sends the results back for further study. It could all be done by a supercomputer but it would take time and lots of money. By breaking the search into little chunks and giving each chunk to one of thousands of little computers you get the same effect.
It forms a very big compute cluster and does it cheaply. It doesn't take much power on a fast computer, I don't notice it running on mine. You can see how you are doing and also the team. There are prizes donated by the sponsors I suppose.
There are a couple of other project like this, SETI@home is one which looks for alien life. This one to me is less abstract and with a mother with terminal cancer, I feel motivated.
It forms a very big compute cluster and does it cheaply. It doesn't take much power on a fast computer, I don't notice it running on mine. You can see how you are doing and also the team. There are prizes donated by the sponsors I suppose.
There are a couple of other project like this, SETI@home is one which looks for alien life. This one to me is less abstract and with a mother with terminal cancer, I feel motivated.