Derrick
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- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
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I got a call from a friend this morning asking me an interesting question. What good is BOINC? BOINC stands for the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. It is a non-commercial middleware system for volunteer and grid computing. Originally developed to support the SETI@home project before it became useful as a platform for other distributed applications in areas as diverse as mathematics, medicine, molecular biology, climatology, and astrophysics. The intent of BOINC is to make it possible for researchers to tap into the enormous processing power of personal computers around the world. (Info snapped from Wikipedia)
What piqued his interest in BOINC is the cancer specific research that due to personal reasons are very important to him. Has there been any tangible results from any of the BOINC run mass computing? As mentioned most people only know BOINC via their SETI@HOME project where radio signals from space are analyzed for any form of intelligent communication from another world.
I had to do a bit of research first to make sure I could recommend BOINC outright because I simply could not answer him. As it turns out the BOINC network is very valuable and participation in it is worth your while and the while of all of us in the long run.
So what exactly are they doing on BOINC?
Climate Change research – There are a number of projects that make a difference to us. One of them is climate change. The research regarding climate change is run by Climatechange.net. Some of their published findings have pretty complex titles but the results are very interesting and indeed useful for predictions. It even assists in weather predictions and making them more accurate.
Search for stars – The Einstein network literally searches for stars using radio data received from a variety of sources including the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico also used by SETI.
Large Hadron Collider simulations – LHC@HOME is a volunteer program that uses the BOINC network to help physicists to develop and exploit particle accelerators like the one at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Most of what it is used for is to simulate particle accelerators.
Malariacontrol.net – The malariacontrol.net project is an application that makes use of network computing for stochastic modeling of the clinical epidemiology and natural history of Plasmodium falciparum malaria.
Build a 3D model of the Milky Way – Here your CPU will analyze date from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and help construct a 3D view of the Milky Way in all its glory.
Protein folding - Rosetta@Home is the project responsible for major HIV, Cancer and Alzheimer’s related research by finding the 3D shapes of proteins. It is research into protein folding, design and docking. It is hoped that this will assist in the design of new proteins that can fight the aforementioned diseases.
All of the projects I have mentioned above have published results that can be read online here.
BOINC is used for understanding. Understanding ourselves, the world we live in and how it all fits together. After reading up a bit more about the projects that use BOINC, I would now, more than ever, encourage people to get on it and allow science to literally process information faster.
What piqued his interest in BOINC is the cancer specific research that due to personal reasons are very important to him. Has there been any tangible results from any of the BOINC run mass computing? As mentioned most people only know BOINC via their SETI@HOME project where radio signals from space are analyzed for any form of intelligent communication from another world.
I had to do a bit of research first to make sure I could recommend BOINC outright because I simply could not answer him. As it turns out the BOINC network is very valuable and participation in it is worth your while and the while of all of us in the long run.
So what exactly are they doing on BOINC?
Climate Change research – There are a number of projects that make a difference to us. One of them is climate change. The research regarding climate change is run by Climatechange.net. Some of their published findings have pretty complex titles but the results are very interesting and indeed useful for predictions. It even assists in weather predictions and making them more accurate.
Search for stars – The Einstein network literally searches for stars using radio data received from a variety of sources including the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico also used by SETI.
Large Hadron Collider simulations – LHC@HOME is a volunteer program that uses the BOINC network to help physicists to develop and exploit particle accelerators like the one at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Most of what it is used for is to simulate particle accelerators.
Malariacontrol.net – The malariacontrol.net project is an application that makes use of network computing for stochastic modeling of the clinical epidemiology and natural history of Plasmodium falciparum malaria.
Build a 3D model of the Milky Way – Here your CPU will analyze date from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and help construct a 3D view of the Milky Way in all its glory.
Protein folding - Rosetta@Home is the project responsible for major HIV, Cancer and Alzheimer’s related research by finding the 3D shapes of proteins. It is research into protein folding, design and docking. It is hoped that this will assist in the design of new proteins that can fight the aforementioned diseases.
All of the projects I have mentioned above have published results that can be read online here.
BOINC is used for understanding. Understanding ourselves, the world we live in and how it all fits together. After reading up a bit more about the projects that use BOINC, I would now, more than ever, encourage people to get on it and allow science to literally process information faster.
