Don’t let your parents tell you video games are a waste of time, kids: Science can leverage the popularity and accessibility of video games to boost the reach and data collection in research projects, writes Technology Networks. A new initiative has brought together 4.5 mn gamers world wide to help reconstruct microbial evolutionary histories via video game Borderlands 3. “In half a day, the Borderlands Science players collected five times more data about microbial DNA sequences than our earlier game Phylo had collected over a 10-year period,” McGill associate professor Jerome Waldispuhl said.

The game works by players getting rid of the anomalies that the computers created when they analyzed the microbes’ DNA sequences. Scientists have discovered that computers are not the best at organizing DNA information, according to this trailer and explainer narrated by actress Mayim Bialik (watch, runtime: 3:37). Since microbes have similar but not identical DNA it makes it hard to map their sequences, as a result, several minor mistakes begin to turn up when they are punched into a computer. These eventually snowball and undermine the analysis process. Borderlands Science breaks down these lengthy sequences into a game experience that looks a lot like Candy Crush’s line-up of sweet treats. So, when a user arranges similar looking pieces, it means that one of the computer-generated mistakes has been removed and a sequence has been corrected. Hurrah.

Futuristic science fiction: By engaging in the project, the 4.5 mn gamers not only help boost the number of results “but they are also helping lay the groundwork for improved AI programs that can be used in future,” Technology Networks reports.

A population of possibilities: “Almost half of the world population is playing with videogames,” McGill adjunct professor Attila Szantner — who came up with the idea — said. “It is of utmost importance that we find new creative ways to extract value from all this time and brainpower that we spend gaming,” he added. The project “shows that we can fight the fear or misconceptions that members of the public may have about science and start building communities who work collectively to advance knowledge,” Waldispuhl said.

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