According to this article the PS3 will not only be the premier games system to own come Christmas, it'll also be helping find a cure for Alzheimer's and other diseases thanks to its vast processing capabilities. Apparently, linking 10,000 PlayStation 3s together will create a computer capable of a thousand trillion calculations per second which can be used to research protein folding in the human body.
Proteins in the body that don't fold correctly are understood to cause diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and various cancers, although it is not known how or why this process occurs. Unfortunately, the average PC, according to the BBC, would take 10,000 days to simulate just one fold, a fold which would take ten millionths of a second in the body. Intel ought to be ashamed of themselves.
At present the solution is to link thousands of computers together, harnessing their spare processing ability so that each can undertake a fraction of the calculations needed to simulate a fold, before pulling the data together via the magic of the interweb. Scientists can then view multiple simulations relatively quickly to ultimately find cures for the diseases.
Cynical marketing stunt based on a technological coincidence, or genuinely benevolent scientific pioneering on the part of Sony, then? Hmm. Nonetheless, Sony claim to be working on a piece of protein folding software that will run on the PS3 when it's launched later this year. Furthermore, the PS3's graphics chip, 'designed for advanced gaming', will eventually support a graphical interface that will allow scientists to 'view the protein from different angles as it folds in real time.'
Er, real time? Please tell me if I'm being stupid here, but did I not just read that a fold takes place in ten millionths of a second? I hope the interface has a slow motion function. In any case, I'm sure a PC graphics card will come out soon which will be able to draw the protein a nano-fraction smoother, making the PS3's life-saving capabilities a bit rubbish and pointless anyway. In the meantime, though, PS3 owners have a reason to feel good about themselves while they're swearing through their headsets at hapless German adolescents for pummeling them 4-0 with FC Weder Lufthausen on Pro Evo Online.
It might be overpriced and underpowered, but the PS3 could save your child's life one day, so be careful what you say about it, ok. By the way, I heard Nintendo were approached about using Wii, but after linking 25,000 of them together the resultant supercomputer, codenamed NintenCure, still couldn't work out how to stop a nose bleed. They had a lot of fun trying though, much more than they'd had with the PS3, and it was really simple to operate too.
Watch out for the Apple version, iProtein Pro, which will make the proteins dance as well as fold, all right out of the box.
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