Androids are attacking AIDS

You could call smartphones a vital technology before, but now you can help it in the fight against AIDS. Or turn it into a tool for studying global warming. Or detect pulsars.



And all thanks to the infrastructure of BOINC ( Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing ), which is already used by a similar program for computers, coordinating assistance to several different projects from more than 600 thousand volunteers, allowing research centers to “borrow” the computing power of their computers to build a virtual supercomputer.

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For example, over the past 24 hours, the aggregate computing capacity of the project has averaged 6.2 petaFLOPS. Had it been a single computing machine, it would have become a sixth in the list of the world's most powerful supercomputers .



Among the projects covered by BOINC, there is a IBM-supported Scripps Research Institute program that studies various possible drug options in an attempt to block the key enzymes needed by HIV.



Another project (from the Albert Einstein Institute ) is aimed at detecting radio pulsars, the regularity of the pulsation of which makes them a valuable "navigation" tool in further space exploration.



Yesterday (July 23), the BOINC project posted a new version (7.2.7) of its free Android application on Google Play for users who want to devote time to their devices for this work. After installation, the application allows you to choose which projects you want to assist.



Since energy management and the use of smartphones are different from computers (on which BOINC traditionally works during their downtimes), the application uses the smartphone only in special circumstances - when the phone is charged and has managed to charge more than 90%. Also, BOINC does not use mobile communication, but instead, if necessary, saves the results of calculations (for subsequent sending to BOINC servers) until the mobile phone connects to Wi-Fi.