Folding question

[creepy]

I know a minimum amount of info about folding. Basicly all i know is its a program that monitors how long your computer is on and then the longer its the on more points your team gets or something along the lines of that. Anyway my question is. If I were to read up and learn more about doing this would I still be gaining points for the team if i were to only run my computer about 19/24 hours a day other than weekends,vacation days,and the summer. Or do you not have to be on the net for it to log how long you have been runing. Problem is my parents turn off the DSL between 11pm-6/7am because they know if it is left on all night my brother and i will stay up on the computer all night and not get to sleep so we can wake up for school.

[Joe Camel]

LOL now WHO around here would stay up ALL night "on the computer"?!! (ROFL)

im still a noob (2 weeks) but i think i can sum it up.

folding is a BIG simulation of.... something to do with cancer and other BAD things. your computer takes a wee little part of the simulation and works it out (can take 15-20 hours) depending on how fast your comp is. then when your comp is done, it sends it in to Stanford and takes another WEEE little part.
basicly they're trying to make/made a SUPER computer out of ALL of our rigs.
others will have a much better discription but i hope i gave you a better idea of why we keep our computers on. ;)

[creepy]

Sounds interesting. Ive gotten a little ways so far. I have the program etc but once i run the program for a good 10 seconds or so it stops responding. Any clue why?

[creepy]

Nevermind about that problem. I got it fixed I just had to reinstall. Being that i want to hop on the bandwagon and fold for team 32 like all you cool people ;) for team do i just put 32?

[Maxvla]

yes. team = 32. username = osumaxx

[creepy]

Thanks for the help.

[OCn00b]

Joe Camel is basically right in his description. Folding simulates how the proteins in the body arrange themselves, or fold, to make your body function right. When a protein arranges itself(folds) incorrectly, the results can be very bad, i.e. Cancer, Mad Cow, Alzheimers etc... Each protein we fold is like a millionth of the folding process I think but I'm not sure about that, so it takes many proteins just to simulate a partial protein fold. You'll notice that many times you'll get the same protein but the run, clone and generation will be different. I'm not sure what those are though, possibly different stages in the folding process. I may have some information wrong since it's late and I need sleep so if I've messed anything up, feel free to correct me. Hope this helps.