A team of scientists managed to advance their research in record time thanks to the collaboration of video game enthusiasts.
“We present it in the form of a game, we reward the players as if it were a game, and they, in exchange, the puzzles they solve, it allows us to advance science”, mentions Gabriel Richard, creative director of Gearbox studio in Quebec.
A ‘Candy Crush’ with a mix of 80’s inspired ‘Tetris’ is how thousands of players are having fun with real science in ‘Borderlands Science’.
Players have the option of solving puzzles by matching the DNA of different microbes.
“The scientific problem we are tackling is the identification and categorization of the different bacteria in our intestines, what we call the microbiota,” explains Jérome Waldispuhl, professor of computer science at McGill University.
See all the details in the video above.