Computing for science, medical research, etc.

FlyingToasterFlyingToaster
edited November 2020 in General

This is probably going to sound fairly nerdy, but I was just curious who here might be into distributed computing? For those who are unfamiliar, there is an organization called BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), which allows people to run computing projects on their computer, created by organizations that need help doing number crunching, etc. to process data for research projects. Basically, by running some of these projects on a computer, people can help process data for various scientific/medial/research projects of their choice. I think it's a fairly cool idea. To participate, people would download the BOINC client software, sign up for projects of their choosing, and let it go.

I first got into this kind of thing in mid 1999, when a project called SETI@Home was introduced. The goal of SETI@Home was to take radio data from the Arecibo Observatory satellite dish and distribute that data to computers that would analyze it for possible signs of intelligent life in space. I ran SETI@Home on and off for a long time.

Then, in the early-mid 2000s, the SETI@Home software was re-worked into BOINC, which was a general software framework to support any type of project that could benefit from distributed computing. What I think is pretty cool is that there are medical research projects using this software to analyze data to help with coming up with medicines, treatments for cancer & other ailments, etc.

In addition to SETI@Home, I have also occasionally had my computer process data for a few medical research projects, such as World Community Grid and Rosetta@Home, as well as Milkyway@Home, which has the goal of mapping our galaxy.

SETI@Home has stopped sending out work right now, which I think is sad. I'm not sure when or if they might start up again.

You can track your progress in these projects - On the web sites for these projects, you can log in and see how much data you've processed, and often which smaller sub-projects they've assigned that your computer (or computers) has contributed to. You can also usually create or join a team in these projects and contribute toward team stats.

Anyway, I think it's pretty cool, and when I run that stuff on my computer, I feel like I'm helping contribute to some cool projects.

Comments

  • quixotic_lifequixotic_life

    I might be into this as long as I don't have to be able to explain it 🥴

    I think our household did the SETI project way back when we first got the internet, listened to Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell, and our long distance carrier was Working Assets (now Credo Mobile). I also like getting to contribute to the greater good and if I remember right, some of their data reports were really pretty.
    📈📊📉

  • FlyingToasterFlyingToaster

    @quixotic_life That's cool you used to run SETI@Home. SETI@Home is dormant now, not sending out any new work, which I think is sad.. I wonder if they'll start up again any time soon.

    I used to listen to Coast To Coast occasionally too. :)

  • Salix67Salix67

    This sounds fascinating.

  • FlyingToasterFlyingToaster

    One of the computing projects, Rosetta@Home, currently has computing tasks for helping with Covid.

  • [Deleted User]cualtzin (deleted user)

    Is the demand mostly on the computer processing power and not so much the internet bandwidth? I’ve got a desktop mostly running idle.

  • dontrememberdontremember

    I have a server at home running 4 virtual machines built around Folding@Home, as well as a couple of smaller machines running the F@H client. All aimed at analyzing COVID-19.

    @cualtzin - it's all cpu, with very little Internet bandwidth required to upload finished packets and download new ones.

  • FlyingToasterFlyingToaster

    @cualtzin Yes, the demand is mostly computer power. Some projects can also make use of a graphics card for computing power in addition to the CPU.

  • FlyingToasterFlyingToaster

    @dontremember Why virtual machines? You can normally have BOINC manage all your projects together, and I'd think it might be faster on the host OS, particularly for GPU-bound tasks.

  • dontrememberdontremember

    @FlyingToaster Until recently, the COVID-19 simulation was cpu-bound, not GPU. My server is running VMware and has a few other things going on, such as a Minecraft server for my grandkids, kodi, plex, nextpvr, Jenkins, Foreman, Ansible Tower and some others. Some are work-related, others are personal, there are multiple different operating systems and not all are running at the same time.

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