Bye-bye boredom

摘要

As chips get ever more powerful, processors more nimble and memories more capacious, it is reassuring to see the human brain keep its starring role as the most extraordinary computer we have, even when it comes to number crunching.rnFor around a decade, millions of people have taken part in the most famous distributed computing project of all. With SETI@home you can download a screensaver that analyses chunks of radio-telescope data for signals from an alien intelligence.rnNow, though, there's a new generation of such projects and your brain is the central processor (see page 36). When it comes visual processing, spatial reasoning and problem solving, grey matter still outperforms silicon. So you can twist and fold proteins into the optimum shape to help develop new drugs and vaccines. Or you can map craters on Mars and Eros, classify galaxies, transcribe old texts and hone artificial intelligence.