Submitted via IRC for takyon
University of Bristol researchers have designed and tested a new virtual reality (VR) cloud-based system intended to allow researchers to reach out and "touch" molecules as they move — folding them, knotting them, plucking them, and changing their shape to test how the molecules interact. Using an HTC Vive virtual-reality device, it could lead to creating new drugs and materials and improving the teaching of chemistry.
[...] The multi-user system, developed by a team led by University of Bristol chemists and computer scientists, uses an "interactive molecular dynamics virtual reality" (iMD VR) app that allows users to visualize and sample (with atomic-level precision) the structures and dynamics of complex molecular structures "on the fly" and to interact with other users in the same virtual environment.
Source: Discovering new drugs and materials by 'touching' molecules in virtual reality
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2018, @02:43AM (2 children)
After the IBM 360 and The Mythical Man-Month, Dr. Fred Brooks turned into an academic studying user interface and real problems -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Brooks [wikipedia.org]
From the U. North Carolina site:
http://wwwx.cs.unc.edu/~eve/home/ [unc.edu]
Among other things, he had a low powered force feedback joystick (previous name for a haptic interface) working with molecular modeling--I think as early as the late 1980s (couldn't find a reference with a date for when his lab started on this). I knew about this because good friend did a PhD with him at about that time.
I wonder what innovations this new system offers in addition to being in the cloud...(well, I'm sure it has better graphics than were possible in the late 1980s).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2018, @05:28AM (1 child)
The thing I got out of those management seminars is that if we needed a baby in a month, we had to hire nine women.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @03:52AM
Obviously you didn't go to Fred Brooks' seminars...