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Scientists build DNA based computer
Archangel Michael writes "Israeli scientists have built a DNA computer so tiny that a trillion of them could fit in a test tube and perform a billion operations per second with 99.8 percent accuracy.
Yahoo News has the story"
sorry, but dna is not exactly life. It's sort of like saying "what if a bunch of sugary acid got together and turned sour?" all the sweet stuff in the world would be in danger! No more Mountain Dew or Coffee! What about jelly donuts? Bedlam! chaos! The price of kerplatz skyrocktets (apologies to daffy duck {the scarlet pumpernickel})
DNA are heredetary databases used to make genes, used to make protiens, used to make cells, used to make organisms, used to make multi organ system organisms ad nauseum. the chances of DNA taking over the world are less than a bunch of worms rising up ruling.
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
You think this guy is taking the piss.
He isn't.
Your cellular DNA has a lot of very well regulated repair mechanisms.
Your mitochondrial DNA doesn't - its a remnant of a symbiosis with a bacterial cell.
Mitochondria are often described as 'cell powerhouses'. You'd be lost without them.
Interestingly theyre often found highly mutated in cancers of all types. Detecting these mutations might be your fastest way of screening cancer yet.
The yahoo article is 99% BS, but hey its a mainstream news source. If you're interested in the article - run (dont walk) to a newstand and buy the journal.
All it does is underly the power of genetics. When you guys are cancer ridden and someone rocks up with a nice genetic cure, just be thankful someone bucked the trend - and saw DNA as something beyond a string of letter that 'just makes proteins'
sheesh - bigger picture guys
The Yahoo article is fairly content-free (and take a lot of space doing it). Here is the link to the the Weismann Institue abstract. http://www.weizmann.ac.il/math/users/lbn/public_ht ml/new_pages/Abstract.html
Note that the 99.8% is what the abstract calls "Transition Fidelity" and is unclear what it means. I take it to mean that from input to output, the answer as read, is corret 99.8% of the time.
It is interesting that they claim to be implementing a Turing machine. Previous uses of DNA has been mostly for the Travelling Salesman Problem with has a (more or less) natural mapping to DNA.
Click here.
That's it, mod me up, you can do it.
So I'm a computer/biologist kinda person.
To help clarify this I have read the original papers on this stuff. Basically the billion operations per second is for one strand of DNA. If you put a trillion strands of DNA in a test tube that is a whole lot of computational power.
Now the article is a bit misleading in terms of the DNA which is actually being used for data storage, the actual process performed on it are being done by various enzymes. I guess the easy way to visualize it as the basic turing machine at this point.
The error comes in terms of the fact that the enzymes are not 100% accurate, but human DNA can be trascribed and operated on with a far higher fidelity than what these guys are reporting so the accuracy is one of first things that will rapidly improve.
Hope that helped.