I’m a huge fan of crowd sourcing. In my own life, I sometimes get so caught up in a problem that I stop seeing it clearly. An outside source, even (especially) one who knows nothing about the problem, can often provide insight that I need to solve it.

And that’s why I love the idea of using a video game to help solve actual scientific puzzles. In less than ten days, doing this in their free time, because they enjoy it, players of the video game Foldit, solved a molecular mystery that had been stumping scientists for over ten years.