Dr Ron Fouchier, from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, said his team had introduced a number of genetic variations - around five - which had enabled the virus to pass between ferrets - the best animal model we have for testing whether the virus will infect humans.

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In 2011, Foldit players needed only 10 days to produce an accurate 3-D model of the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, a protease whose structure had stumped scientists for 15 years.

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Scientists had attempted to model a 3D structure of a protein associated with the HIV virus for 15 years and failed.

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It seems that the old model of cyber-attacks, involving peer-to-peer virus infection, is becoming increasingly ineffective as anti-virus companies step up their game, causing nogoodniks to rely on search results, websites, and zero-day attacks.

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After scientists repeatedly failed to piece together the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus, they challenged the gamers to produce an accurate model of the enzyme which they did in three weeks.

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Plugging the details into a computer model, they calculated that injecting drug users were "super-spreaders", each transmitting the virus to 20 other people.

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