Use your PC to Fight Cancer and Other Diseases

[SentientTootsieRoll]

Many people don't know that they can use their computers to help scientists fight cancer and other terrible diseases such as Alzheimer's, etc.

There are many projects that are helping scientists do this, including Folding@home, Rosetta@home, World Community Grid, etc. I'm personally running Rosetta@home on my desktop, laptop, Android phone and servers. The following information applies to Folding@home as well as any other project.

What is this all about?

Rosetta@home is a project run by the University of Washington that uses computing power to study diseases and the cures to them. It's basically a network of supercomputers consisting of volunteers like myself to perform work and you can be a part of it.

How do I help out?

You just need to install a free program on your PC and/or smartphone. Download the program here: http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/join.php
and follow the instructions and your computer will begin working on the projects.

My computer isn't very fast, is it even worth it?

Regardless of how fast or old your computer is, it can help scientists fight diseases. Every little bit helps. I personally have an old Pentium 4 machine from 2003 running it. A modern/faster computer will be faster at performing the calculations but every little bit adds up and will ultimately help scientists out.

Will this slow my computer down?

Not necessarily. The program only works when you're not using your computer. If you're playing a game or browsing the web, it will recognize that you're using the computer and it will stop until your computer is idle again.

Additionally, you can also schedule it to only run at certain times (i.e. at night time only).

If you have questions, feel free to post them below! It may ultimately help one of us personally at some point.

If this gains a large following, we could start an MREInfo.com team and participate together!

[noderaser]

[SentientTootsieRoll]

Sweet! Glad to see someone else here participating!

[noderaser]

I've been crunching for about 15 years or so, first with the original SETI@Home and then with various BOINC projects.

[Tedster]

Guess I'm way too cynical, they are probably overseas criminal cartels hijacking your computer and mining bitcoin.

[SentientTootsieRoll]

You don't need to worry about that if you're running your computer behind a router with no open ports, with the latest security patches installed, antivirus, and the firewall installed and enabled. BOINC has been around long before bitcoin was even a thing. If you see BOINC projects occupying your CPU and not some other, weird application you don't know about, then it's probably ok.