Phylo – the multiple alignment game

Phylo is a game where players are required to manually edit a multiple alignment. The player who can make the best multiple alignment, maximizing the matches and reducing gaps, gets the best score.

This is a very funny and innovative idea. It is based on the principle that humans are better at identifying patterns than computers, and that the problem of calculating a multiple alignment is so complex that even the most advanced multiple alignment software does not find the best solution for a large set of sequences, and that a manual editing of a multiple alignment is always required.

You may have already heard about fold.it, a similar game based on protein folding: this is the answer for the guys who work in the field of multiple alignments and phylogeny. I am happy because I belong to this second group :-).

(source: http://oggiscienza.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/farmville-fatti-da-parte)

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