Dick Sblog

In a world where competition has been seen as the way to achieve efficiency and high performance, it’s a relief to find examples that illustrate the fact that it’s actually collaboration that moves us on. The recent global concern about a flu pandemic has prompted an initiative by researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch to run virtual chemistry experiments on the World Community Grid in order to identify the chemical compounds most likely to attach to influenza viruses and stop them from spreading.

The necessary computational work adds up to thousands of years of computer time, but will be compressed into just months using World Community Grid, a facility provided by IBM and thousands of volunteers around the world who are prepared to donate their computers’ spare processing capacity for projects that are of community benefit (this could include you…)

You can read the story here.