Video gamers spend tons of time -- for many it's 10,000 hours by age 21 -- battling mythic monsters, shooting aliens and rescuing princesses from digital castles. Adrien Treuille wants to put those efforts to better use. The Carnegie Mellon computer scientist is the creator of two online games -- Foldit and EteRNA -- that put video gamers to work solving epic scientific puzzles. His aim is to make super-boring-sounding scientific mysteries like "protein folding" and "RNA synthesis" fun and challenging for gamers. The results have been staggering, as Foldit and EteRNA players -- there are about 430,000 of them between those two games, most of them playing Foldit -- continue to make discoveries that had eluded  scientists and their supercomputers.
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Adrien Treuille, a computer scientist, designs games that further science
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In Foldit, players mold 3-D models of protiens as if they're puzzles
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Another game, EteRNA, lets players toy with genetic sequences
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Treuille: Gamers have made discoveries that elude scientists and computers
Earlier this month, for example, @placeholder players helped solve a puzzle about proteins that could further research into HIV/AIDS.