A computer game hoping to solve one of biology’s biggest mysteries is being developed by academics at Goldsmiths, University of London and Imperial College London.
Protein docking is one of the big unsolved biological problems that DockIt, the game currently under development, will aim to solve. Central to a protein’s biological activity is that it often docks onto another protein, forming a molecular structure, but the 3D shape of this remains difficult to model.
Understanding the docking of proteins can have major benefits to science – including improved knowledge of all cellular processes, and the practical application of drug design.
Professor Simon Colton leads the Computational Creativity Group here at Goldsmiths (based in the Department of Computing). Last week he appeared on BBC Radio 4 in comedian, Natalie Haynes’ documentary about computational creativity and humour. She writes:
Simon Colton of Goldsmiths College showed me how his algorithms search the day’s newspapers to calculate, from the headlines, whether it’s a happy day or a sad one. The programme’s mood is thus decided, and it can write something akin to poetry by picking key words from the newspaper articles themselves. Mr Colton’s computer can also turn Twitter into verse, finding short chunks of prose which fit the mood he’s chosen, then picking tweets which rhyme and scan and putting them in a meaningful order.
Arduino is one of the latest emerging technologies that are revolutionizing education. It’s essentially a tiny computer about the size of a deck of cards that can be programmed with ease. Arduino has been adopted widely in both Europe and the US for use in STEM (science, engineering, technology, and mathematics) education in high schools, as a way of teaching computational thinking skills. One question that often arises is where Arduino fits in with all of the other programming, hacking and making tools that are out there that help people to learn programming.
Read Brock’s full article at Amazon.com’s tech store…
Breaking news: Dr Mick Grierson, the programme leader for BSc Creative Computing and the MA/MFA Computational Studio Arts is being interviewed tomorrow afternoon on “PassWord with Peter Warren”, live on resonanceFM. He’ll be talking about Creative Computing, music tech industries and other, related stuff about digital making / computational arts.
You can listen live at resonanceFM, or tune in to 104.4FM in the london area.
3D printing is the technology of the moment. It’s now left the high-tech research and development laboratories – where it’s been used for decades – and the consumer market is wide open.
And the market is growing. Just last month, industry leader Stratasys bought 3D printing firm Makerbot. Objects can be printed almost as easily as documents, and the price point for a basic 3D printer is coming down faster than it did for laser and ink-jet printers. You can download designs for thousands of models and print anything from toys, to tools, to replacement parts. The possibilities are endless.
Video games will soon incorporate 3D printing. And as with other content in books, music, and movies, there is also potential for licensing 3D models. In the not too distant future, we will be able to print an entire product from scratch (including its electronics), and deliver it immediately to the customer. When this is made possible, 3D printing will radically overhaul the way manufacturing markets operate.
Brock’s been v busy over the past year. Not only does he have a busy teaching load coaching our undergraduates and postgraduates in the wonders of Physical Computing, but he’s also been writing the newly published Arduino Projects for Dummies.
Well done Brock! Now, enjoy the summer and try to have a well-deserved rest before term starts!
The Computing Department’s very own Prof Mark Bishop has appeared in New Scientist this week where he has been interviewed about the development and potential (mis)use of military killer robots. Mark argues that a ban on these kind of weapons is essential. Read the online version of the article (by Simon Makin) here.
A computer game hoping to solve one of biology’s biggest mysteries is being developed by academics at Goldsmiths, University of London and Imperial College London.
