this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
635 points (96.9% liked)
Science Memes
11047 readers
3586 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It literally just won people two Nobel prizes
How does that help the rest of us?
It allows us to predict the structure of proteins before we make them. This can speed up research into protein-based medical treatments by astronomical amounts-- drugs which took years to develop through trial and error and/or thousands of hours of computational power can now be predicted beforehand in terms of their structure, which allows us to predict how they interact woth the proteins in our body. It's an incredible breakthrough in the speed of medical research.
with the compute power required for models like alphafold, my guess is it will be at the monopoly of some corporation which will charge exorbitant prices for any drugs it develops through AI. Not a fault of AI itself, just fucking parasitic shareholder pigs which we should have eaten long ago.
Damn I hope not but yeah probably :(
I am talking about them winning the award
That's a bad faith question, but I'll answer it anyways. It helps us because it means that we may now use the discoveries that won them the award.
It's hype like this that breaks the back of the public when "AI doesn't change anything". Don't get me wrong: AlphaFold has done incredible things. We can now create computational models of proteins in a few hours instead of a decade. But the difference between a computational model and the actual thing is like the difference between a piece of cheese and yellow plastic: they both melt nicely but you'd never want one of them in your quesadilla.
Hooray for them. \s