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Years ago folks realized that many computers sat around growing Life seeds or spawning pretty fishies to digitally swim around the screen.

Someone wondered, what if we created a screen saver that actually did something useful? Thus was born the concept of distributed computing, which grew around a few Big Ideas.

SETI - searching radio signals for extraterrestial life. Now Joe Cowboy in West Texas (with a sense of wonder) could be a part of the group that analyzed signals from radio telescopes looking for signs of life in the universe.

Genome@Home - How to decipher the locations and compositions of 3 billion genes in the human chromosome? Even a supercomputer is not as fast as 1,000,000 home computers for this kind of work. As researchers learned more about the genome their speed picked up, but early on G@H was it. Folding@Home grew out of this project.

Code cracking - Several variations, from finding new prime numbers to cracking German Enigma codes used on U-boats. There is still one message from WWII that has not been decoded after years of serious crunching.

Folding@Home - What do Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes and CJD have in common? At some level, all are caused by proteins in our cells incorrectly folding, leaving them unable to do the intended job. Stanford University researchers are working to provide high level computational support of molecular modeling for thousands of lines of research that will directly lead to a cure for these diseases.

It is fascinating work, easy to do and will one day keep folks (maybe even me!) from suffering the agony of these illnesses. Cancer and diabetes runs in my family so I figured I would help. A few systems I had became the Free Republic folding team and we slowly added more. About a year ago a couple of new folders came on board with enthusiasm and our team has nearly 200 active members today folding on about 1100 computers.

So what do you do now? Go here and download the F@H GUI 5.03 and let it run in place of your screen saver. You will see a long molecule that move occasionally as F@H tries different positions of atoms around the protein. That is folding in a nutshell - trying to discover how the body squishes a protein that can be many feet long into a cell. Then unfolds the protein to do its work (processing sugar, rebuilding a cell wall). All inside a single cell, billions of cells, in a nanoscale environment.

Please add your system to the fray, remember Team 36120, add your FReep name and away you go. As time goes on please come back to help us help others get started, or to fold faster.

TB