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Gamers Help Scientists Decipher the Structure of a Virus

Shark Lady Games — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:42:28 +0000

Gaming is considered a waste of time by some people. However, anyone who has been a gamer for a while, can tell you that playing computer games has many benefits – it relaxes the mind, can distract you when you are worried, helps you vent anger and improve your coordination and wits.

It now appears, that gamers can put their skills to even better uses – like helping science solve some mysteries. This time, gamers helped scientists to decipher the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus. This enzyme has baffled scientists for a long time. It is a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV. The problem was, that the enzyme cannot be fully analyzed under a microscope, but needed to be displayed as 3D.

Thus, the University of Washington decided to ask online gamers to help it solve the structure of the enzyme. They used a hi-tech device called Foldit. Unlike other medical devices, Foldit is a fun-with purpose device that can be used to analyze and to see the enzymes clearly. The gamers were divided into two competing teams to unfold the chains of their amino acids using a set of online tools. And, like bosses, the gamers nailed it.

Now that the structure of the enzyme is clear, there might be new insights for antiretroviral drugs, the medication against HIV.

Read more here

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Good Gamers Have Bigger… Brains

Shark Lady Games — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:58:42 +0000

If being a good gamer isn’t enough for you, there’s something else you can boast – the size of your brain.

Researchers say they can predict your performance on a video game simply by measuring the volume of specific structures in your brain.

The new study, in the journal Cerebral Cortex (cool name, guys), found that nearly a quarter of the variability in achievement seen among men and women trained on a new video game could be predicted by measuring the volume of three structures in their brains.

According to the research, expert video gamers outperform novices on many basic measures of attention and perception, but other studies have found that training novices on video games for 20 or more hours often yields no measurable cognitive benefits.

These contradictory findings suggest that pre-existing individual differences in the brain might predict variability in learning rates, the authors wrote.

The researchers found that players who had a larger nucleus accumbens did better than their counterparts in the early stages of the training period, regardless of their training group.

The full article is available here

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Robin Williams The Gamer

Shark Lady Games — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:18:56 +0000

Not only is Robin Williams one of the funniest men on earth, he is also a pretty cool guy and a gamer. Here he is, Late night with Jimmy Fallon, talking about late-night gaming:

It’s not the first funny clip of Williams and video games. Here he is, demonstrating Spore and making the audience cry with laughter:

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10 Reasons NOT to Date a Girl Gamer

Shark Lady Games — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:20:15 +0000

You may think you’ve found the girl of your dreams, but in reality – it could be a nightmare. Here are 10 reasons why you SHOULDN’T date gamer girls.

10 Reasons NOT to Date a Girl Gamer