FR Folding@Home Project Update - Inside the Brain: An Interactive Tour

Alzheimer's Association ^ | 2007 | Alzheimer's Association

[texas booster]

The Brain Tour explains how the brain works and how Alzheimer's affects it.

Start Brain Tour

Taking the tour: There are 16 interactive slides. As you view each slide, roll your mouse over any colored text to highlight special features of each image. Then, click on the arrow to move to the next slide.

[texas booster]

Please click on the above link to learn more about Alzheimer's Disease and its formation.

Abour 270 current FReepers make up the FRee Republic Folding Team # 36120. We have enrolled about 1,200 computers into a distributed computing effort dedicated to finding a cure for Alzheimer's Disease and other diseases that have their genesis in misfolded proteins.

FReepers are now one of the largest teams in terms of members, and in less than a year have climbed up to # 56 in the world in our contribution to the efforts.

Join us to help the basic research into a terrible disease.

Please ping us here when you sign on and PLEASE ping us if you have any questions!

[texas booster]

New FReeper Folding@home thread.

Please ping if you want on or off the list.

[texas booster]

New FReeper Folding@home thread.

Please ping if you want on or off the list.

[wastedyears]

So what is it, you register with them, and you allow them to use part of your hard drive to store information, or what?

I’m extremely confused

[texas booster]

Folding@Home FAQ for new users:

What is Folding@Home? A Stanford University project to find out how proteins fold.

Why it's important: Proteins folding wrong causes all kinds of diseases, like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and forms of cancer. Folding@Home uses novel computational methods and large scale distributed computing, to simulate timescales thousands to millions of times longer than previously achieved. Through Folding@home, scientists now have the horsepower to study the mechanics of protein folding. With its ability to share the workload among hundred of thousands of computers economically, Folding@home can help scientists understand how proteins snap, or don't, into their predestined shapes - and may help to explain the origins of diseases such as Alzheimer's and apparently unrelated diseases. We're fueling research that could end all that.

How does it work?: You download a safe, tested program (see link below) that is certified by Stanford University. It gets work from Stanford, runs calculations using your spare computer power, and sends the results back to the University.

Is it safe? Yes! Folding@Home rarely effects computer performance in any way and won't compromise your privacy in any way. It only uses the computing power you aren't using so it doesn't slow down other programs.

How do I get started folding for Team FreeRepublic?:
1.) Download the folding program from Stanford University's folding download page (Folding@home Client Download). Type in your desired user-name.
2.) Type in 36120 for the team number. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT - if you get the number wrong, you won't be folding for team FreeRepublic!
3.) The third question asks, "Launch automatically at machine startup, installing this as a service?" - We recommend you answer YES. Otherwise you will have to manually start the program after every reboot.

How can my computer help? Even if they were given exclusive access to all of the world's supercomputers, Stanford still wouldn't have as much processing power as they get from the supercluster of people's desktop systems Folding@home relies on. Modern supercomputers are essentially a cluster of hundreds of processors linked by fast networking. But Stanford needed the power of hundreds of thousands of processors, not just hundreds.

There's no reason to not get involved! It's free, easy, and you can know you're helping every minute without lifting a finger.

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List of Relevant Folding Links
Why Fold - Watch This !!

Another Folding Clip

The Inner Life of a Cell

Folding@home Client Download

FreeRepublic.com Folder Stats

Extreme Overclockers Stats for FreeRepublic

Another Stats Page

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Competition (Not!!) Dummies ..Daily Kos

Dummie Folding Threads #7 #8 #9#10#11 #12

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Other Useful Stuff - Links

How much are those work units worth? And what are they?
All Projects Listed
Point Summary for Workunits

Stat Image Generator

Fahmon Third Party Monitoring Software

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Past FreeRepublic Folding threads

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 #23 #24 #25 #26 #27 #28 #29 #30 #31 #32 #33 #34 #35 #36 #37 #38 #39

[texas booster]

Check out post 5 for more details.

You download a small program that acts like a screensaver. Instead of pretty fishies swimming around, you are literally folding proteins and uploading the results back to Stanford University.

Folding a single protein is a mammoth task. A single protein composed of 40,000 atoms can take years to simulate a millisecond of folding on a supercomputer. Stanford breaks the task down into tiny snippets and sends the work out to about 260,000 systems around the world.

It is very similar to the SETI project that searched the heavens for alien radio signals, and is a follow-on project to the Genome@home project from the 90’s.

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Scientists can also see the terrible effects of Alzheimer's disease when they look at brain tissue under the microscope: Alzheimer tissue has many fewer nerve cells and synapses than a healthy brain.

Plaques, abnormal clusters of protein fragments, build up between nerve cells.

Dead and dying nerve cells contain tangles, which are made up of twisted strands of another protein.

Scientists are not absolutely sure what causes cell death and tissue loss in the Alzheimer brain, but plaques and tangles are prime suspects.

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It is the creation of the plaques and the formation of misfolded proteins that Folding@home is currently focused on.

[Shadowstrike]

pinged for when I’ve got a chance to look.

[al baby]

I lost my mom to that nasty disease last November

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AD has stolen several of my family members away, often long before their bodies expired.

My father took the ACT at 53, cold with no study at all, and scored a perfect 36.

Twenty four years later he couldn’t remember my name, and I am a junior. I do NOT want to pass on like that.

Please let us know if we can help you get started folding.

[RhoTheta]

Reference bump.

[texas booster]

Please ley us know if we can help, when you have time to get started.

Blessings!

[texas booster]

"Free Republic Folders - A Tribute to Ronald Reagan"

Current production chart of our team, #36120.

[wastedyears]

Registered with my name on here.

Do I close the program when everything is finished?

[texas booster]

If you are watching a protein fold on a black background, then you can close it and a red flower will appear in the system tray by the clock.

F@H will run when your system is idle.

If you ran the console version then you will have a DOS text box full of geekspeak. Let it run overnight and lets see what the % completion is in the morning.

Be sure and turn off other screensavers so the two prograns don’t compete for CPU time.

[wastedyears]

I don’t run a screensaver.

I’m running the DOS version of it I guess.

[texas booster]

Did you download GUI version 5.03 or console version 5.04?

If you have a red flower in the system tray then you are running the GUI version. It works just fine, except that it doesn’t start folding until you have passed the login prompt when Winders starts.

I ran the GUI version for a very long time, until I put in multiple user accounts for my children. Then it would sit there waiting for some one to login before folding.

If you don’t have a login screen then leave it as is. We will watch for your first completed protein segment here:

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_list.php?s=&a=2&t=36120

It should complete and show up there in a couple of days.

[wastedyears]

I downloaded 5.04; no flower in the system tray; it’s completed 1250 out of 125,000 steps so far.

The machine gets restarted maybe once a week, other than that it’s always on. I just don’t know if I have to keep the program open for it to continue folding.

[texas booster]

OK, you are running the console version.

You do not need to keep the window open if you anwered Yes to the question, “Start as a service?”

If you answered Yes, then close the window, restart and turn the monitor off. You will be running F@H during the night as long as the system is turned on.

If you answered No, then we will do a little surgery.

[wastedyears]

It seems good to go. Thanks for the help, Texas :)

[kinoxi]

I’ve got a few old ,functional, boxes lying around. How can they help?

[texas booster]

Thank you very much for adding your systems to the team.

Fire up the systems running at least Win XP and as much memory as you have. Video card speed doesn’t mean much. Nothing less than a 500 mhz chip makes sense any more.

Check out the instructions in post 5 for links.

Download F@H 5.04 into a new folder (I use F@H). Run it from there and answer a few questions:

Name - kinoxi
Team - 36120
Launch automatically? - Yes
Ask before fetching? - no
Use IE settings? - no
Use proxy? - no (few use a proxy server to get to the Internet)

These are the most common settings. Here is a wiki detailing additional settings for the console:

http://fahwiki.net/index.php/How_do_I_reconfigure_the_console_client_options%3F

You will be able to follow your points here:

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_list.php?s=&a=2&t=36120

More tomorrow!

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[dfwddr]

Hi Al.
LMK if you have any questions, or need any help setting it up.

dfwddr

[Egon]

My shameless self-promotion for this thread:

If you're interested in tracking your folding machine(s) over the web, please Freepmail me or follow the links below.

Available features include:

• Timely snapshot of each machine's progress on it's current project
• Point values for project
• Estimated completion dates/times
• Warning indicators for machines that appear to have stopped communicating or folding
• Warnings for machines that won't make their deadline
• Team ranking status box (courtesy of EOC)
• Machine stats like PPD (points per day)
• Project comparison stats: PPD, average time taken to completion, etc.
• It's free-- and always will be
• ...other features as time permits, and people request

Links

• Team Page
• Instructions

Please Freepmail me with any questions.

[Republican Babe]

ping

[texas booster]

Folding@home is easy to get started. Please look here for the download and ping us if you have any questions!

http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/download.html

I hope that you are dry finally. We keep getting rain every day. The horses have mudded up the barn beyond belief.

[texas booster]

My bad. Folding@home is still running on Windows 98/Me systems using the version 4.00 GUI client. You should have 128 MB of RAM.

Instructions are located here:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/winstructions.html

The older systems you have will live to fold another day, even with 98.

[texas booster]

BTW, anyone can also get their Playstaion 3 to fold when not playing games.

F@H uses the cell processor to rip through the dynamics of water molecule interaction on these proteins.

About 30,000 of these babies are working for F@H now, and getting a tremendous amount of work accomplished.

It is at the Sony Store menu.

[Route66]

Bump for new folders.
Please join the team. It’s easy and rewarding.

[Drango]

Proud to be foldin’ bump.

[ken in texas]

Thanks for the new thread and your effort in keeping this going.

I noticed that I've now been pushed out of 16th place... congrats to all of you helping the cause!!!

[texas booster]

I almost have the wife talked into a new Playstation 3.

For games for the kids, you know....

Even my kids know that it is for me to run F@H on.

Lotsa points from that baby!

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

I came across the F@H site after following a link on a Neurology forum on which I got a crash course in Multiple Sclerosis after my dx and joined F@H under the team based on that website.

Would you know if it is possible to switch/transfer my (ID/work unit count or anything else, especially points)from the original group to the FR folding team?
Just curoius, thank you very much!

[texas booster]

F@H realized early on that folks wanting to change teams would happen. The answer is no.

I can’t even get them to delete a couple of users from DU that are obviously Reagan haters, and posted only to embarrass us. Well, we keep the names and we keep the points.

If you are running the GUI F@H then you can change your team on the control panel. (Team 36120) I prefer that folks use their FReepname on our team, just so we can ping them to new threads and FReepmail when we see a problem.

If you are running the console F@H let me know and I will send you instructions. If you have a Playstaion 3 or a Mac then post here for help.

Your name is up to you, your team is your choice (36120!) and I will help you as best I can wherever you fold.

We would be honored to have you join our humble band.

[texas booster]

Well, your first work unit has completed for the FReeper team.

You will still have your points from the Braintalk team. It looks like they are fairly quiet over there.

Check out your points here:

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?s=&u=260675

Please ping us if you have any questions, or if you just want to talk. ;)

[texas booster]

I have been playing with 3 Vista systems this weekend and am having trouble setting up F@H under Vista.

I am being told bt Vista that I can’t run F@H as a service since I am not logged in as the administrator. However, my profile lists me as the administrator!

To make matters worse, on one dual core system I have core 2 running F@H as a service, thank you very much M$. The other core keeps complaining that I must be logged in as administrator, and won’t run after restart.

What in the world I am doing wrong? It’s probably pretty easy, but I must not be thinking well at after an all nighter. I have one Vista Bland and two Vista premiums.

Many thanks and a donation to the FReepathon if we can get this solved. Plus three more folding systems.

[zeugma]

Why should F@H need to be administrator? Weird.

[shadowscotland]

Two post from my teams forum should help:

You have to run the console with administrative provledges. Start -> Accessories -> Command Prompt Right click on the icon and select run with administrative privileges. cd to your FAH directory and run the client. You will then be able to install the service.

Vista caused me lots of problems until I found “Run as administrator” and “Run in compatibility mode.” Either/of of those two solve most of my headaches.

[shadowscotland]

PS3 ‘upgrade’

Quad core upgrade to a C2D system beats the PS3 in PPD.
A new mobo/ram/E6320 running SMP also beats the PS3 in production at only half the price.
Especially when the end of the month price cuts arrive :o)

If F@H is all it’s going to do - I’d spend my money on something that give best bang-for-buck on F@H imho

[JosephW]

For a better deal on the PS/3 check out Amazon. They just had a price drop, include 6 BlueRay movies and the BlueRay Remote.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009VXAM0?tag=thecyrustruth-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B0009VXAM0&adid=1XG000QF21X8MGE15M5V&;

hope this helps someone.

[texas booster]

Both of our new folders are on the boards, and we are waiting on the first units from four new folders.

Thanks for joining the team to make a difference!

New folders can look here to see your progress, and please ping us if you do not show up when expected.

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_list.php?s=&a=2&t=36120

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

Glad to be of service!

S_S29
(Mom_with_Multiple_Sclerosis)

[Clara Lou]

For the first time ever, I have a completed unit sitting in a queue. It was completed yesterday but couldn’t be turned in “to work server.” Same thing today.
Anybody else having this problem?

[texas booster]

I can’t get into the Folding forum to see if anyone else is delayed in sending results.

When I link to Stanford I get “You tried to visit www.stanford.edu, which is not loading.”

I found this post from today over at ExtremeOverclockers forum:

“The daily user summary files that Jason and others use to calculate the stats have been empty files since some time yesterday.”

Putting the two together, I’d say the boys at CalTech have been having some fun at Stanford’s expense, since this is a campus wide outage.

Or California drooped into the Pacific and even Drudge didn’t notice. ;)

[JosephW]

Drudge noticed. He just happened to be there at the time :)

[JosephW]

There was almost a complete day where things were hung up, but it looks like everything went through in the end.

[texas booster]

Good to see Klutz back in school doling out updates to all his Winders machines.

[Klutz Dohanger]

Yeah, we’re back. Time to play some “catch-up” and pass that “other team” in total points again. Rest assured, until they fold completely, I’ll still be here, doing the one man tap dance on their parade. it’s been what.. 18 months now? I don’t post real regular, but I’m still sticking with it, just not “obsessed” with it like those great times back in Jan 06.. :-)

I was getting pretty depressed this summer, dropping from 69 to #75, but I’ll be back in form by the end of the month and posting somewhat regular numbers. I’m still shooting for a personal goal of #50 or better.

[JosephW]

Just awe inspiring. And here I was impressed that I finally made the top 1500. You put me to shame.

BTW, does anyone have the DUmmies team number, I’d like to see how I stack up against the combined lot.