FLICKR, MJ/TR
Earlier this year, a protein-folding game called Foldit made headlines when its developers announced a group of players had solved the structure of a protein that has stumped scientists for more than 10 years. Now, another science-inspired “game” is making waves in the community—one that could help decipher the genetic basis of dozens of diseases.
The game, called Phylo, was developed by Jérôme Waldispuhl of the McGill School of Computer Science and collaborator Mathieu Blanchette. Its 17,000 registered users log on to arrange sequences of colored blocks that represent the nucleotides of DNA. "There's a lot of excitement in the idea of playing a game and contributing to science at the same time," Blanchette said in a press release. "It's guilt-free playing; now you can ...
