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Biotransistors
Quite a number of people have written in over the last day or so regarding the article in EE Times about the possibility of integrating bacteria into semiconductors. The hope would be to make biotransistors with "unique capabilites." The idea, itself, isn't a new one however and work has been going on in this area for a while. Like the quantum machine, a lot of the work in this area probably won't see practical fruition for quite some time.
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What, like Barry White?
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Ok, this is way OT, but please don't mod me to oblivion.
/. page. If we go straight to metamod.pl, is says that we haven't been Slashdotters long enough to meta-mod even though we've meta-modded many times in the past. Does anyone have the scoop on this? Did they change the m2 rules so that you have to have been a member (for lack of a better word) longer? Did they disable it altogether? Go to the metamod page and post any info you may have. Thx.
A few of us have noticed that the meta-mod link is now gone from the main
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
The researchers of this or whatever are really oversimplifying the issue.
Plant metabolism isn't my big thing but what happens in a photosynthetic plant is there's a stacks of photo sensitive organelles called thylakoids. In the membrane of the thylakoids there is chrolophyll which basically has a set of repeating single and double bonds and when the light strikes it, it bumps one of the bonds into a higher energy resonant structure. Then the cholophyll falls back down to its the lower energy, the energy which is in the form of a bond, not a free electron as in electricity in a wire, is carried to a membrane bound set of protiens where the electron is ultimately supplied by H20. There is a electron transfering moleule called NAD+ which transports electrons. The energy provided by the bonds is ultimately tranfered to the NAD+ which is reduced to NADH and O2 is liberated as a gas. So we not talking about a flow of elctrons like in a wire. The electron is bound up in another molecule.. Which will ultimately be used to create a H+ gradient to drive the production of ATP.
I can see using chlorophyll as a light sensitive device.. but I can't see the use of the whole cell as a light sensitive device, it simply wasn't designed with that purpose in mind.. And it seems like an opportunity to get at the electron would be far down the line and would create so much latency (I may be wrong about that)that it wouldn't be usedful in elcetronic devices.
It's an interesting idea but I think the propects for encorporating oraganics and electronics lie with using small numbers of molecules.. For instance chlorophyll may have some applications as an optical device of some sort.
Yes, How dare we enslave these bacterium in the name of technology? These microbes have rights too. Now let's all give up on this foolishness of Biotransistors and the like. We should demand that the poor enslaved bacteria be set back into their enviornment where they can fill their lives with hard work making Antibiotics and other medicines.
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
Talk about microcode updates... :)
Interesting. I logged on today to see this:
You are a moderator with 0 points.
Um, thanks? What kind of crap is that? (I've never been a moderator before but.... Does that happen often?)
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Just out of interest.. how many slashdotters knew that this kind of embedded bacteria concept is already hundreds of millions of years old.. and that the most dominant lifeform on the planet is in fact a symbiote.. photosynthesising plants actually contain single bacteria in each energy producing cell that takes part in the fundamental process of photosynthesis.. Interestin', huh ??
Yeah. Some scr1pt k1dd13 with a Biology degree and access to a lab is working on Pentium Pox as we speak...
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Not computer viruses in the transistors, but other viruses can be harmful... "What's up?" "My Voodo3 has a cold..." "That's nothing! My motherboard's got AIDS!" =)
This stuff is mostly the same as regular ICs, just they're using bacteria as the doping element. So, the limiting factor is still how to route 10,000 interconnections between each and every "neuron". Even with "biotransistors", you're still light years away from mimicking a real brain (and really, no closer than you were with regular transistors).
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Gotta love the idea of growing processors rather than building them. Talk about knocking the price down a notch. You could go to the drive through for all your semiconductor needs rather than having to mail order them, and you could afford a reasonable computer on a day's salary.
Eh...
And do you think electrons have it easy? Show a little consistency.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Yeah? Well mine's got Ebola!
Or maybe it's just dripping that coffee I spilt on it yesterday...
I'm wondering does slashdot do anymore real news, or depend on everyone else to supply news for them so /. don't have to do anything?
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They don't need to inject them into us. They just need to make sure that they aren't going to be broken down by the digestive juices and sneak them into our food.
Suppose an integrated system is developed that measures sugar levels in the blood stream and has a piece of DNA or RNA, or a whole bacteria, that can generate insulin, then you wont have to go get injections or have your system flushed every other day. I guess some smart people will think up ways to adapt such circuitry to use the citric acid cycle to get its own energy.
It simply means you can generate tightly controlled amounts of substances where needed, when needed, in the amounts needed.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
I don't think there's any difference here, really. You can't just stuff a bunch of bacteria in a semiconducting concoction, go take a coffee break and expect to have a working chip when you get back.
You would still have to go through meticulous design and some sort of silicon fab process (which also involves "growing" crystals and oxides)
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Why all the controversy about using bacteria? I took my intro bio lab class at MIT last semester, and bacteria were used in the three out of four modules (Genetics, Protein Biochemistry, and Recombinant DNA Techniques) precisely b/c they are model organisms: they grow fast, they respond quickly to specific environmental stimuli, etc. Besides, when you think about it, our bodies have probably been using bacteria to generate enery. Mitochondria are thought to be bacteria that entered our bodies in a symbotic relationship: we give them protection, they provide us with energy. Think about it: mitochondria is the only organelle to have its own DNA (and circular, i might add, just like bacteria), it has a double layered membrane with cristae (the creases on the on the inner membrane), and they use the membrane to generate the ATP (adenosine triphosphate) though cellular respiration that we need to survive. If you've got problems using bacteria in transistors, well, maybe you better take a look at the machinery that runs your body.
C'est une monde triste qui ne prend pas le temps de savoir tout ce qu'on peut faire.
This seems great and all, but compared to most things, bacteria are pretty large. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think they are smaller than an equivalent transistor. So what is the big deal here? So they act like transistors? So what? For the most part, so do vacuum tubes and light switches.
Now if they figured out a way to do something similar with viruses, this might be interesting. They are many orders of magnitude smaller than a bacterium.
It seems to me that if you are using bacteria in this manner expecting exact results time after time, you are going to get a big let down eventually. Lets say some other random bacteria gets into the case and attacks the bacteria in your chip. Or the culture fails to replicate the 942'th generation. Or it mutates and suddenly provides 2 free electrons instead of 1. There seems to me to be too many variables in this theoretical hardware to even warrant exploring it.
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Now instead of trying to hax0r into someone's computer and trying to 0wn them with 31337 skills, all you'd have to do is sneak into his room and smear Neosporin all over his PC :) Enter the new wave of 31337 hax0rs.
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Brings a new meaning to that phrase. And I quote "Now we are turning a problem into a feature."
I don't see anything particularly new here. The article mentions using photosensitive bacteria to act as "biotransistors", and gets very excited about the fact that when light shines on a photosensitive bacterium, it yields up an electron that could be used to switch a primitive biotransistor. I don't see how this is really any different from a conventional semiconductor.
Also, the article mentions using these bacteria as optical amplifiers - nothing very exciting there either. Optical amplifiers have been around for quite a while now after all, in the form of Erbium Doped Fibre amps.
As long as the bacteria are still alive, they would require some sort of substanance. But before any thing if this sort would become truly feasible some sort of atuomatic feeding system would have to be developed. It could be possible that they recieve their food from the air, or from a feeding plate, etc. But I wouldn't want my computer to die just because I have a "black thumb."
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
Now we'll see more stupid processor names like Ebola and the Salmonella III.
So much for eating near my computer.
Hey, combine this with the previous article (bacteria can survive in orbit) and we could have computers seeding the cosmos! All those people who wanted to buy Seti@home coprocessors will be lining up to launch their boxes into the void, hoping to bring life to some distant planet...
- Michael Cohn
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Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
Will we have to worry about computer viruses?
This idea sounds all well and good, but we are talking about slavery here!
How can we allow poor, innocent bacteria to work our chips for us? What did they do to deserve it?
Remember, we have a responsibility to lover life forms. Don't buy these chips, they are evil.
On a different note, I wonder whether they are resistent to antibiotics. It would be great to destroy someone's hardware by giving it medicine.
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