hi all, I speculated on this only a few years ago and its become a reality.

the protein folding problem is one of the premier problems of bioinformatics. basically, the ribosome constructs proteins by stringing together amino acids, the "building blocks". the amino acid strings "fold up" in a certain low-energy configuration or "conformation". basically a complex 3d object. ie all our 3d moving parts are built out of a 2d string that folds up, seemingly miraculously.

this is one of the deep questions in physics and biology, why certain strings fold in certain ways. some of this is fairly well understood. for example there are strings of amino acids that are water resistant, I think they are called "hydrophobic" or something like that. they tend move toward the inside of the molecule. but many other configurations are not understood. its a kind of "dark matter" problem. we understand the general outline but not the specifics.

so here is a program that made headlines recently. its based on collaboration enabled by the internet. a game was created in which the objective is to minimize the energy of molecules. the players are given simple "moves" that alter the molecule and they pick the locations to alter. their score is based on the energy minimization achieved.

the recent findings are that human players could do well as algorithms in many cases, and in some cases exceed the performance of computer algorithms. this is a phenomenon also known as "the wisdom of crowds". at least given a good interface, sometimes the crowd can behave quite intelligently.

its a big research area of Web2.0 to find the best interfaces to support this. I would argue we are in the early stages of this. for example, wikipedia is a very successful system, but it is only one possible interface that encourages particular behaviors. [such as edit-wars]. there are other interfaces possible. I hope to see more innovation in this area. I dont think we've seen the space of possibilities explored very much at all.

if you dont like the idea, just remember that democracy, invented about 2 millenia ago by the greeks, is exactly an attempt to harness the wisdom of crowds through voting.

the overall problem of protein folding has huge implications for nanotechnology. basically biology in all its massive proliferation and evolutionary success is a tremendous "existence proof" that nanotechnology is quite possible. the naysayers of nanotechnology seem to gloss over this an misunderstand it.

so, congratulations to these innovators, and keep your eyes out for developments in this area. protein folding is a key area with tremendous significance in health/drug research, nanotechnology, mechanics, etcetera, crossing many fields that exist now and surely many more yet to be invented.

Man versus Machine: Guess Who Won?
Gamers Acquit Themselves Nicely in Competition Against Computer Program to Solve Puzzle
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/04/tech/main6743547.shtml

Gamers beat algorithms at finding protein structures
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/08/gamers-beat-algorithms-for-finding-protein-structures.ars

Minds Beat Machines in Protein Puzzle Showdown
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/crowdsourced-protein-folding/

In a Video Game, Tackling the Complexities of Protein Folding
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/science/10gamers.html?ref=technology