You can help fight the coronavirus. All you need is a computer
Staying home isn’t the only way to help fight the coronavirus pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have added their home computers to a vast network that forms a virtual supercomputer called Folding@home. The Folding@home project, which uses crowdsourced computing power to run simulations of proteins for researchers studying diseases, announced in February that it would begin analyzing proteins found in the coronavirus behind the ongoing pandemic (SN: 3/4/20). These proteins are tools that help the virus infect human cells. Using computer simulations, researchers are mapping the coronavirus’s proteins, in hopes of revealing vulnerabilities that can be attacked with new drugs. The more volunteers who donate their unused computing power to the effort, the faster the virtual supercomputer can work its magic. Since the project announced its new focus on the coronavirus, around 400,000 new volunteers have joined. Science News spoke with project leader Gregory Bowman, a biophysicist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, about how the project works and how people can help....