Foldit is a puzzle game that helps to learn how proteins fold. Does not sound much? Proteins can be involved in disease in many different ways. The more we know about how certain proteins fold, the better new proteins we can design to combat the disease-related proteins and cure the diseases.

And in case you just watch TV for hours and hours, or do simply NOTHING, let your computer look for life on other planets:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
http://www.seti.org/

Here you can find a list of projects from BOINC. BOINC is used by many volunteer computing projects. Some are based at universities and research labs, others are run by companies and individuals. You can participate in any number of these projects.
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Project_list#SETI.40home

http://fcforum.net/sustainable-models-for-creativity

Each year, the FCForum brings together key organisation and active voices in the sphere of free/libre culture. It responds to the need for an international arena to coordinate a global framework for action to defend and expand the sphere in which human creativity and knowledge can prosper freely and sustainably. As civil society, it is our responsibility to oppose practices that plunder this common heritage and to block its future development.

The Declaration and “How-to” guide to new models of sustainability in the digital era that we are releasing explain the issues for every “sectors”, list several “models” and defend our conviction that:

copyright as we currently know it is counterproductive, and the restructuring of existing models is inevitable and imperative; attempts by some entities and corporations to profit through the creation of monopolies, often with the active connivance of government, should be brought to a stop; the sharing and exchange of ideas is of vital importance to culture and we must work towards maximising governmental or institutional initiatives that understand and support these dynamics; it is necessary and important that people be compensated for socially valuable creative work.

This document looks at some of the many existing and possible models . We should be encouraging and promoting experiments based on these ideas.

We invite citizens, policy reformers and institutions to take the content of this practical proposal into account and to use its release as an opportunity to discuss the future together.

We will continue to collect signatures and your contributions. With them we will be developing new versions as new requirements and new solutions appear.

Please, contribute to its dissemination.

There are petabytes of research data being produced in laboratories around the world, but the best web search tools available can’t help us make sense of it. Why? Because more stands between basic research and meaningful discovery than the problem of search.

Many scientists today work in relative isolation, left to follow blind alleys and duplicate existing research. Data are fragmented — trapped behind firewalls, locked up by contracts or lost in databases that can’t be accessed or integrated. Materials are hard to get — universities are overwhelmed with transfer requests that ought to be routine, while grant cycles pass and windows of opportunity close. It’s not uncommon for research sponsors to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in critically important efforts like drug discovery, only to see them fail.

The consequences in many cases are no less than tragic. The time it takes to go from identifying a gene to developing a drug currently stands at 17 years — forever, for people suffering from disease.

Science Commons has three interlocking initiatives designed to accelerate the research cycle — the continuous production and reuse of knowledge that is at the heart of the scientific method. By making scientific research “re-useful” , enabling streamline the materials-transfer process so researchers can easily replicate, verify and extend research and by Integrating fragmented information sources Science Commons makes scientific discovery easier by design.

Die Beauty is a Surreal thriller into a feverish fairy tale world . A story about friendship and alienation , family ties and Kindred blood .

A group of girls want something to happen . Something That Will make everything change . A dead body floating down the river Would ask Exciting . And if you wish for something hard Enough …

Die Beauty is a feature made by a group of people in Ransäter Sweden . The world premiere Will Take Place 17 September 2010 at Cinema the Rio in Stockholm , Värmland Museum in Karlstad and at The Pirate Bay on the web . It Will Be Released with a Creative Commons license.

You can download it, remix it and enjoy it!

More about this movie at
http://diebeauty.blogspot.com/
more movies at
http://www.wreckamovie.com/

Star Wreck Studios is a film studio that is specialized in blending the Internet and the film industry together by unleashing the creative potential of Internet communities, and changing the whole chain of filmmaking. Through the launch of its new online service http://www.wreckamovie.com/, the company makes it possible to collaboratively produce professional quality A/V content of all types: from short films to feature films and to all distribution screens – from Internet and mobile to film theater.

Star Wreck Studios was established in February of 2007 by the creators of the world’s first feature-length collaborative Internet film, Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning which has more than 8 million global downloads. Star Wreck Studios is headquartered at the center of the global Internet film world in Tampere, Finland.

Pioneer One is an ambitious project from Josh Bernhard and Bracey Smith who have collaborated before on ‘The Lionshare’, a BitTorrent-exclusive film which was released on VODO earlier this year. VODO is an online distribution platform which is able to reach millions of viewers through their relationships with existing BitTorrent communities.

Using a Kickstarter campaign to solicit the $6,000 budget for the pilot episode (over $7,000 was actually raised), the series will be further founded by donations from people that watch the pilot and are willing to donate money to see the series.

In the episode’s first day and a half online, about 84,000 downloads have occurred. and since the show’s premiere $1,000 a day has been donated to fund the next six installments.

In the pilot, what first looks like a terrorist act turns out to be a Cold War relic come back to haunt the present. We follow our main characters, a team of Homeland Security agents, as they discover the truth of what’s happened: a forgotten Soviet space mission has returned to Earth, and what it’s brought back will have implications for the entire world. It’s part political drama, part procedural drama, with a tinge of sci-fi. But beyond the initial catalyst, which is fiction, everything has its root in factual events.

download the pilot here http://www.pioneerone.tv/

PIONEER ONE Video Blog #10 from Pioneer One on Vimeo.

Behind closed doors, the European Union, United States, Japan and other trade partners are negotiating an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ACTA will contain new international norms for the enforcement of copyrights, trade mark rights, patents and other exclusive rights.

Following the release of a draft ACTA text, the FFII updated its analysis of the effects ACTA may have on the software field. The software sector is plagued by patent thickets. Non-practicing entities (“trolls”) file frivolous lawsuits and demand high damages. In the U.S., even major software companies, owning huge patent portfolios, support patent reform. Depending on the outcome of the final text, ACTA may impose injunctions for all patent infringements and increase damages. This will render reform impossible. The FFII analysis shows ACTA may help holders of large patent portfolios to eliminate competition from start-ups, smaller sized companies and open source projects.

FFII analyst Ante Wessels: “The ACTA-problems are not limited to software. To win the fight against climate change, fast diffusion of green technology is needed. Policy makers know that, patent trolls know that. We will see the same problems that plague the software field, like trivial patents, amassing of patents, frivolous lawsuits, hampering of follow up innovation and high transaction costs. Especially since many modern products, like hybrid cars, contain software.”

In a podcast, Nikolaus Thumm, Chief Economist of the European Patent Office, said that the key facilitator of technology transfer is licensing. He mentions people giving away essential parts of their technologies.

Ante Wessels: “Making the fight against climate change dependant on charity from patent holders hardly seems advisable. Means to force patent owners to cooperate are needed too. ACTA may impose injunctions for all infringements, there will then be no way to force patent holders to cooperate. Even if this problem is solved, the high damages ACTA proposes will drive up the costs for diffusion of green technology. While the funds are already limited, for instance, the fight against AIDS seems lost, due to lack of money. The same may happen with diffusion of green technology.”

According to the FFII, there is no indication that the 1994 WTO TRIPS agreement provides inadequate protection for patent holders.

The next round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations is scheduled for later this month in Switzerland.

Links

FFII analysis:
http://action.ffii.org/acta/Analysis

European Patent Office Forum 2010 on Climate Change
http://www.epo.org/about-us/events/inventor-forum/forum/programme.html

European Patent Office podcast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-en6m8etOYk

Permanent link to this press release:
http://press.ffii.org/Press%20releases/ACTA%20may%20hamper%20fight%20against%20climate%20change

About FFII

The FFII is a not-for-profit association registered in twenty European countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 1000 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing.

The voyage of the HMS Beagle has been described as the most important journey ever made. During his travels, Charles Darwin gathered information and knowledge that would drastically change the way we look at the world. With his book “On the Origin of Species” (1859) Darwin would be the first to explain that life on earth is not created by God, but rather developed by evolution.

To celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birth year, and the 150th anniversary of his publication of “On the Origin of Species”, VPRO is running a 35-part series called Beagle: On the future of species. Life on earth is under continual change. Is there reason to worry about the future? Can science offer us sufficient answers to some of our most compelling questions? Are we leaving behind an inhabitable world for future generations?

Our VPRO-Beagle ship the Clipper Stad Amsterdam is an experiment in itself. This three mast sailing ship is rigged with advanced scientific measurement equipment. Scientists from various disciplines and from all over the world execute experiments on board this sailing science lab. The ship also has a built-in TV studio from which parts of the series are produced and broadcast.

Beagle takes viewers on a journey across magnificent landscapes, vulnerable regions, endangered areas and adventurous locations, stretching from Patagonia to the South Pacific, and from Australia to St. Helena. En route one recurrent question will be asked: “Will the earth survive mankind?”

Beagle has strong interactive components. All scientific findings made during the journey can be closely watched on VPRO’s Beagle website, and are broadcast by both radio and television; personal journals and video logs about life on board are made by the producers, the sailing crew, and by guests on board. These are updated on a daily basis. The route of the entire voyage can be closely followed by viewers on the internet.

The TV experiment has finished but youtube channel remains there http://www.youtube.com/vprobeagle

made at Wordle

Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist and writer.