Slashdot Mirror
MIT Making Computer Parts from DNA
Rei writes "Following in the footsteps of Lynn Conway's pioneering work on VLSI that allowed ordinary students to create their own processors, a group of MIT professors have almost completed doing the same thing
using DNA, known as synthetic biology. While not all of the components of a basic computer are working yet, there is hope that some day ordinary students may be able to design living computers, producing everything from novel drugs to seeds that sprout into treehouses."
You are probably American. In British (and Australian, New Zealand etc.) English, group can be referred to in the plural sense without comment.
While Americans hold to a rule where the word group is plural only if the individual components are being emphasised, in British English there is no real problem with using plural throughout.
It's much the same way that Americans refer to companies as singular, but British English refers to them as plural: "Amazon has expanded internationally" versus "Amazon have expanded internationally".
The Slashdot post makes it seem like the people at MIT invented the idea of synthetic biology. Well, I'm sure the good guys over at MIT would agree that the hallmark papers that started the craze didn't originate from MIT...they came from Princeton & Berkeley and there's plenty of other institutions who are making major contributions (some greater than MIT's), especially on the science end.
That being said, their idea of Biobricks is very innovative and they did host the first conference on the topic. So the popular press can be easily misled.
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What is up with you God hating Atheists?
No idea sorry, I'm agnostic myself. God would have to exist before I could hate him anyhow. A child can even prove that they exist, so why can't god manage to do such a small thing?
If you have no proof for God, maybe it is because God doesn't think that you deserve the proof.
Equally so, we have no proof for Santa Claus. Perhaps his elves have made him an invisible cloak too and we don't deserve proof from him. It's much more likely that you're just wishing.
The kind of proof that the faithful have can not be shared with others. That is why it is called faith.
Certainly, but faith and belief are merely that. They have no grounds in reality whatsoever and can never be facts. They're a conclusion without the evidence. It's cetainly possible that God exists, but no more likely than Santa Claus in actual facts.
Oh, and by the way, if you can't prove something, that doesn't mean that it isn't so.
True indeed, but if your god is so afraid of showing himself, then why all the miracles in the past? God may exist but He certainly hasn't parted any Red Seas recently or raised any dead, which is quite suspicious considering he was up to all sorts of tricks a while back. It's safer to infer that God is fiction just like any other fiction one is likely to cook up in ones head.
theology and science used to be the same thing in ancient times. Now people like you have your science and you also have a lot of hubris.
Actually, it was the occult (magic) and science that used to be one - Alchemy, astrology etc. Christianity hated and persecuted that too. Deep down I guess you Christians knew that it was only a mater of time before people realised that there is no disernible god or gods.
Humility is a much better trait than intelligence as far as I can see. I would rather spend a day with a down-syndrome patient than some MIT drone who wants to play at being god.
Humility to what? Truth isn't a matter of taste you see regardless of your personal preferences. Your elusive god isn't impressive enough for my tastes anyhow.
If you had seen Yahweh, you certainly wouldn't be spreading your Atheist nonsense.
I agree. If he corrected my denial of him, I'd gladly repent. If you see him, tell him to pop by and tell me off ASAP. I'd gladly be proven wrong, because I would prefer that there was indeed a benevolent creator looking over us. Unfortunately however, this just isn't likely.
Also, you seem to treat science as an idol.
Generally I see Christians treating their own silly opinions about God as idols. Nonethless, I don't believe that science is the panacea to mankind, but certainly rationality and beliefs based on what can be seen to be true is indeed my guiding light. The alternative is to believe in any number of unprovable fairy stories made by foolish men pretending to be or know god.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
You guys are really hyper-paranoid for no reason at all. While the original post says "While not all of the components of a basic computer are working yet," it would be more accurate to say, "We hope that in a year or so, we may be able to build a full-adder*." Seriously, the only parts that work reliably are NOT and OR gates, and you can only use about three of each in your system before cumulative stochastic error makes it fail. (Not to mention that you can't use the same gate twice -- if you've got two NOT gates, but need three in your system, you've got to go back and design a whole new gate from more basic parts.) We're not anywhere near "playing God;" we're not even at the "playing Electrical Engineers" stage of being able to design and build systems. Yes, the long-term goal is to create a seed which grows into whatever we want, but at the moment, we can barely make E. coli fluoresce in response to a complex input. I know you fear slippery-slope effects, but really, when we get into eukaryotes, never mind multicellular organisms, then you may have some justification to worry.
* I was trying to use MIT's paradigm to design a full adder this past summer, and realized that even a half-adder would require parts which had not yet been characterized or even synthesized. The best system which has actually been built can direct a cell to secrete a specific chemical when bright light shines on it. Really.
All the best computer scientists are - take Sophie Wilson, half of the team that created the ARM microprocessor.
A few years back, it was known that all the women working in the 2.2 kernel team had the same special status.
That's what I would do as a young student with a DNA machine.
-- thinkyhead software and media
about -7 years.
Iceland, DeCode. Google it.
Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)