EAST LANSING, Mich. — It doesn’t require a major in sciences for students at Michigan State University to help research cancer or climate change.
If you BOINC, you can research cancer, search for extraterrestrial intelligence, fight AIDS, or support a myriad of other research efforts without lifting a finger.
BOINC, pronounced boink, is the acronym for the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. More than 1 million people have joined the network around the world with more joining every day.
Jonathan Brier, a 20-year-old Michigan State junior and founder of the Michigan State BOINC Researchers, wants to change the world and he wants recruits. BOINC is an open-source computer program created at the University of California, Berkeley, to create the world’s fastest supercomputer with the unused processing power of personal computers.
It works by taking very large computing processes, like proving Einstein’s theories or modeling climate change, and breaking them down into very small pieces. These pieces are downloaded to personal computers, and the numbers are crunched when the computers are idle. Files are then uploaded to the servers that they originated from – with the completed computations - and the process starts over again.
Time on supercomputers is expensive and this program allows researchers access to supercomputing power at a much lower cost with the help of volunteers’ computers around the globe researching the cures for AIDS, malaria, bird flu, cancer and many more ailments.
“The average computer user only uses 10 to 15 percent of its processor capacity,” Brier said. “BOINC just uses resources that normally go to waste.” It doesn’t require you to leave your computer on any longer than normal. “It will help science in the background while you’re surfing the Web,” Brier said.
Running BOINC does not slow down the other programs on a computer because it is set at the lowest processing priority, so every other program on the computer is processed before BOINC starts to run.
“I’ve been running BOINC on this computer nonstop for three years,” Brier said, gesturing to his laptop adorned with a BOINC flier. “I have never had any problems with it.”
Normal computers processing little pieces of these projects may not sound like much, but the power of programs like BOINC is now approaching the realm of science fiction. “The total computing power of BOINC is surpassing the fastest super computer in the world,” Brier said.
It is only using a small fraction of the computers in the world, so it has the potential to be much faster.
This is Brier’s mission. He laughingly admitted that his passion for BOINC has “absolutely nothing” to do with his major, supply chain management, but it may have more to do with his minor in philosophy and his passion for science and technology.
People do different things with the program. “Some people download the program and forget about it,” Brier said. “But if people want to learn more about the projects, every program has forums so you can talk to scientists and other volunteers.”
Many people like to run BOINC because they want to help out with research, but others help because they enjoy the screen savers of climate modeling and spinning atoms that are related to the research.
“I want to talk to professors, students, East Lansing residents and everyone else about BOINC,” Brier said. “I want researchers at MSU and everywhere to be aware that this free program funded by the National Science Foundation is available and may be of use for their computationally intense research. The more people that know about it, the more power it has.”
The program is free and can be downloaded at http://boinc.berkeley.edu. Additional information about BOINC can be found at that Web site, too.
More information about the MSU BOINC Researchers can be found at: www.msu.edu/~boinc.
###
Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.