Contribute to Real Scientific Research by Playing a Game

By playing a computer game called Fold It YOU can seriously contribute to real scientific research in the areas of cancer, HIV, alzheimers, biofuel and more! Basically the game involves "folding" computer models of proteins. From the Fold It site:

The number of different ways even a small protein can fold is astronomical because there are so many degrees of freedom. Figuring out which of the many, many possible structures is the best one is regarded as one of the hardest problems in biology today and current methods take a lot of money and time, even for computers. Fold it attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans' puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins.

Also beginning this summer Fold It will have a feature that allows users to design brand new proteins that could help prevent or treat important diseases!

Here are videos to explain the game. I have not gotten to play Fold It because although they provide both a mac and pc version, the mac version is 10.4 and I am at 10.3 Boooo! I think Fold It is a fascinating bit of technology. The more people we have working on these devastating diseases the better chance we have of finding cures.

Funny Video Friday - Banana Scare

Goofy scary banana :)

Phone Your Phone So You Can Find Your Phone

Here's a very useful goodie for life from the web...PhoneMyPhone Simply enter your phone number, select the number of times to call, schedule the time to call and hit "Call Now". PhoneMyPhone will call your phone at the selected time. I just tried it and it comes up "Unknown". When you answer there is a recorded message explaining why you were called. PhoneMyPhone can be a very useful service. How many times have you had to have someone else call your phone for you so you could find it? Me? Too many times to count :) PhoneMyPhone is a great service for finding your phone, getting a wake-up call while traveling or if your alarm breaks or as the website says "escape boring meetings" and "end sucky dates" :)

Informed Parental Guidance Suggested ;)

I believe it is very important to know what's in a movie before I let my kids watch it. You just can't tell by the rating system what might be portrayed in the movie. Once I rented a PG-13 rated movie and an R rated movie. The love scene in the PG-13 movie was shockingly graphic while the one in the R rated movie began with kissing and then cut away to another scene leaving the details out. Its very confusing and almost every movie made these days says it is rated for either: sexual material, sexual content, sexuality, sexual references, etc. which seems to have a different meaning in different movies. It could range from something as simple as innuendo to a make-out scene to some moaning heard in the background to graphic.... well, you know ;) I just discovered Kids-In-Mind! Kids-In-Mind is a wonderful site to help parents determine whether a movie is appropriate for their children to see by making an informed choice. Kids-In-Mind has reviews for an extensive selection of movies that have been rated according to SEX/NUDITY, VIOLENCE/GORE and PROFANITY on a scale of 0 to 10. Kids-In-Mind also explains in detail why a film rates high or low in a specific category, and they include instances of SUBSTANCE USE, a list of DISCUSSION TOPICS that may elicit questions from kids and MESSAGES the film conveys. Each section tells in detail exactly what kinds of things are portrayed in the movie. Kids-In-Mind is an important parenting resource in a day where even Disney can't hardly seem to make a G rated movie.

Happy Mother's Day!

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~ Rajneesh

Funny Video Friday - Chicken Police?

Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! and Miscellaneous

1. Just a little shout-out to all who have taken the time to leave comments. I have tried to reply in the comments as I have seen others do but it doesn't post. Just wanted y'all to know I appreciate it so much.

2. I reorganized and decluttered. Hope it makes a more enjoyable viewing experience. Even I was feeling attacked by all the ads I had on here :)

3. My oldest daughter will be graduating (I'm sooo proud!!) from high school in 2 weeks so posting has been sporadic and will get more so between now and then. Just hang with me and I'll get back to my original intention of an AM post and a PM post each day. After its all done I'll be able to get some comments returned and visit my readers blogs more. Thanks again!