Communications of the ACM
Turning Gamers Into Citizen Scientists
Elite players of the online game EteRNA have helped code a computer algorithm which "beats the pants off of" any that existed before, says EteRNA co-created Rhiju Das.
Credit: CNN
Everyday gamers are making notable contributions to science and medicine. One online video game that makes the connection is EteRNA, in which players solve puzzles that also happen to mimic the way strands of RNA will behave in nature. The game has become a digital hotbed for a group of citizen scientists as willing to publish their findings in a scientific journal as they are to share videogame exploits. EteRNA is one of a small but growing cadre of games that seek to deploy video gamers — virtually none of whom have backgrounds in the sciences — to help solve riddles that could lead to major medical breakthroughs. In some cases, they are helping to crack in a matter of days the molecular code of viruses that have stumped scientists for decades.
Often, humans competing against each other within a gaming environment are able to trump the raw computing power of machines. The gaming results, one day, might provide fodder for a researcher on the verge of solving one of the world's medical mysteries. The value of the players' contributions boils down to human intuition. While scientists have built computer programs to decipher and build new strands of RNA, none can pick up subtle, emerging patterns quite like a dedicated human brain. In short, a computer algorithm may be good at telling you what's already happened. But unlike a curious human, it will be really bad at guessing what's going to happen next.
Two years after it formed, EteRNA has about 40,000 registered players, while about 100 comprise EteRNA's elite, the players who have gone from mere puzzling to helping code a computer algorithm. EteRNA's top player is Eli Fisker, a librarian from Denmark who has worked on and off between stretches of unemployment. He has no scientific background to speak of and only got Internet access at home a little over two years ago. Not only is he ranked the best at solving the puzzles that eventually become new RNA strands, Fisker is also one of a cadre of players who pore over hardcore lab data and are helping craft a computer algorithm that might one day be as good as the game's best players.
From CNN
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