Finding New Planets with the Help of Gamers

A new game called Planet Hunters, set up by  a list of organizations including the University of Oxford and Yale University, enlists the help of gamers to seek out new civilizations. Or at least discover potentially new planets, by searching through NASA Kepler public release data.

According to Gamasutra's article, "Every user who helps to discover a planet is then named in the acknowledgements as part of The Royal Astronomical Society monthly notices."

The official report explains more of the details.

Online Gamers Crack AIDS Enzyme Dilemma

Online gamers have used a game called FoldIt to help decipher "the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus," helping scientists to develop "new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs."

While the enzyme had "thwarted scientists for a decade," the entire process took the online gamers only about 3 weeks to crack.

Commenting on the project's success, FoldIt's creator Seth Cooper has stated, "Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in this week's paper show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before."

The project is also discussed in a recent paper published by the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

Events Calendar for the CVGA

The CVGA now has an events calendar to help everyone keep track of when the archive will be reserved for special events, as well as where we will be represented around campus.

Check it out here: http://bit.ly/KrJNfV

CVGA @ Party for Your Mind Event

The Shapiro Library on Central Campus hosted a welcome event for incoming freshmen called Party for Your Mind over the weekend, complete with an introduction to the library system's resources, video games from the CVGA, and rubber ducks (library rubber ducks) for souvenirs. Here are some pictures of the fun times that were had on Sunday afternoon:

Top Games - Month of August 2011

Here are the top games played in the archive for the month of August.

1. Starcraft II (PC)
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops (Xbox 360)
3. FIFA Soccer 11 (Xbox 360)
4. (tie) NBA 2K11 (Xbox 360)
4. (tie) NCAA Football 11 (Xbox 360)
6. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
7. Assassin's Creed II (PS3)
8. (tie) Super Smash Bros. Melee (Gamecube)
8. (tie) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
10. Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360)

Brawl is ahead of Melee, but I'm sure that will change now that students are returning. And people have been playing a couple of older favorites while the archive has been relatively quiet. Should be interesting to see what the Fall brings!

CVGA to be Featured on Double Jump

The CVGA will be featured on next week's special episode of Double Jump about Gaming & Libraries.

Double Jump is "Michigan's only local game show," and "explores gaming as a legitimate and mainstream form of art and entertainment."
 

They've posted a Sneak Peak to next week's episode on YouTube, which contains our segment.

A few photos from E3

Julia Lange, a doctoral student who has been making occasional use of the CVGA for her research, was at E3 earlier this summer, and shared with us a few photos she snapped with her cellphone:

Thanks Julia!