Scientists Make Biochem "Brain" From DNA Strands

thebchuckster writes "Scientists from the California Institute of Technology have created an artificial neural network (or a "tiny brain," in the words of the lead scientist) from DNA strands that interact with biochemical inputs. The artificial neurons of this network can take incomplete inputs, interact with each other, and come up with a complete conclusion. This is what the human brain does on a much more complex scale. It's also a principle scientists have used for computing and robotics."

Comments

headdesk*

[girlintraining]

The artificial neurons of this network can take incomplete inputs, interact with each other, and come up with a complete conclusion.

So they've managed to create a republican using only a few brain cells...

Re:headdesk*

[toastar]

The artificial neurons of this network can take incomplete inputs, interact with each other, and come up with a complete conclusion.

So they've managed to create a republican using only a few brain cells...

Well, it's not that impressive considering republicans can do it without any brain cells

I always wondered

[Windwraith]

I always wondered if biomechanical stuff is actually better than "pure" mechanical stuff.
Aren't the organic components less durable than inorganic ones by definition? If you had a robot (cyborg rather) whose organic brain expires, replacing the organic brain will keep the same functionality? Otherwise, will the metal/plastic parts work perfectly but the machine will remain an empty, useless shell?
(Will patents and other tricks of "real life science" meddle on this? History dictates they will.)

I don't know, maybe I am just a "metal purist", but I am not sure about having materials that can rot, into machines that might need to move in too-harsh enviroments or last long. I don't want such components to expire or rot because of one overheating (something a classic CPU can resist fine unless it's fire-inducing hot).

Re:I always wondered

[Windwraith]

Damn, just thought of this after posting.
How would damage affect the output of such a brain. Will the number 12 still be the number 12 after something external alters the layout of the bio-brain? How will a possible bacterial infection alter the metrics for that CPU, rendering the system defective or useless? (since this is organic, any change might alter the registers or precision, maybe 12-12 won't be 0 as expected). How will it fare when it starts to expire?

With this I am not saying a scifi scenario of rampart biobots attacking humanity. I mean actual changes in actual output that can lead to crashes, wrong arithmetic or other glitches, or just rendering the software unusable.

Re:I always wondered

[phantomfive]

Assuming Turing was correct (a reasonable assumption), no biological brain, or any other type of brain, can do anything a computer can't do. The main difference you'll see is performance differences due to things like parallelism (DNA computing like the guys in this article are doing, for example, can solve a traveling salesman problem surprisingly quickly), or in favor of metal, the fact that signals travel faster through a computer than through neurons. But in terms of fundamental solving power, they are both the same.

Re:I always wondered

[Psychotria]

Aren't the organic components less durable than inorganic ones by definition?

I see nothing in the definition of organic (or inorganic) that implies or even suggests a measure of durability.

Re:I always wondered

[chrischan]

Show me an articulated robot that moves around as long as humans do without totally falling apart every 3 days/months/years and we can start this discussion. Even without any moving parts: Show me *any* kind of artificial (non-organic) device that can process information for 70 years without any interference from outside (like my brain can do), and we can start to think about how organic components are less durable than inorganic ones. Until then, my imaginated cyborg is going to have his inorganic mechanics replaced every couple of days/months/years.

Re:I always wondered

[johanatan]

I've long thought this was an implication of Godel's theorems but wasn't aware of which part of Turing's work applies here. Can you expound a bit? Thanks.

Re:I always wondered

[lachlan76]

This conjecture is known as the Church-Turing thesis. Hofstadter's GEB has some discussion of this.

Re:I always wondered

[GerryHattrick]

Brains likely hold memeories in holographic-like form, and there are probably many (insightful? imaginative? deceptive?) 'errors' in their access pathways. Maybe you could simulate just anything on a Turing Machine, but the whole seems distinctively different.

Re:I always wondered

[AnyoneEB]

The GP is referring to the Physical (or "strong") Church–Turing thesis which says that all physical processes (including, say, any computation done by the human brain) are Turing-computable. I do not know if Turing or Church actually suggested that version or if only later computer scientists came up with it. It cannot actually be proven without a much better understanding of physics, but it is generally believed to be true.

Re:I always wondered

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't the organic components less durable than inorganic ones by definition?

I see nothing in the definition of organic (or inorganic) that implies or even suggests a measure of durability.

Organic material, by definition, can be metabolised by organisms. If you make something out of organic materials, some organisms will attempt to consume it. When they succeed, we call it "rot".

Re:I always wondered

[ipwndk]

I think they are less durable, but they have potentially higher computing power in their connectivity; within connectivism that is.

Each neuron can independently perform its calculations, even though the transfer of information is quite slow. And we can clearly see it works; animals and humans have very powerful computing capabilities. So I expect organic neural networks to be more powerful, at least short term. In the future we might surpass their capability with computer processors, but it's a different type of processors we have now, and where we are currently going. Basically, it must be a quite slow processor in terms of raw calculations power, but with hundred of thousands of calculation units that can perform independently.

Re:I always wondered

[Anonymous Coward]

But in terms of fundamental solving power, they are both the same.

I want to see a human brain that can solve millions of mathematical problems within a few seconds. It really just depends on how advanced our technology is. I'm willing to bet that, eventually, computers will be able to solve problems that would normally take a very long time in very little time.

Re:I always wondered

[physicsphairy]

Even metal and plastic parts are biologically vulnerable. (Look at footage of the Titanic.) I imagine it would be rather more of an issue if these materials had been prevalent in nature, but they may become a more popular food source pretty soon.

You might not want parts to wear out, but what if it is virtually free to grow a new biological part, and costs 10k for the inorganic equivalent? Biological parts are also pretty good about replacing themselves ("healing"), which means they will be fine on their own, vs. a mechanical device which inevitably involves wear on bearings, etc. "Rotting" is a pretty nice feature for resource disposal/recovery as well--at some point it becomes a problem that your fancy inorganic microchips require new resources and/or a lot of energy expenditure to replace.

In any case, I don't think you're going to have to worry about being inconvenienced by the tradeoffs. Obviously, as technology develops, we will use the stuff that is most useful in the places where it makes sense to do so. It's not like there aren't already plenty of inorganic components which are quite heat sensitive, etc. You choose the components based on the needs of your project.

Re:I always wondered

[lexsird]

Organic Technology is some awesome stuff and definitely where it's all at. What we need first is proper neural interfaces with existing technology and we should be sharing this as a species in our universities. Frankly, we need to get over the concept of "war" and except the fact we have differences and in fact rejoice because of them. I don't want to lecture on the logic of that particular subject at the moment. But with those "war" resources turned to science, we can be out gallivanting about the galaxy or even universe, out there we will find challenges that will make us all happy as pigs in slop to have as many human beings breathing as possible. The very thought of shooting each other would be laughable.

Genetic engineering, working with the very building blocks of God. Some heady stuff, and we should embrace is as a species before some bastards in our ranks uses it to fuck us all over in a global way.

We as organic creatures, we absorb nutrients, then convert this into building blocks and repair ourselves. We unlock those secrets and we not only cure everything we can imagine in illnesses, but we also cure aging. We get to cure having a little dick. Or a big fat ass. We get to seriously start augmenting humans until we are no longer purely human. Imagine authoring our DNA so that it absorbs metals, converts them into a biological alloy that then becomes our skeletal and muscular system? We would engineer our bodies to adapt to about any environment, to never die, so that the sum of our knowledge grows exponentially, as we interface with all data.

We can then develop senses beyond what we have now so that we can view the universe in ways we can't comprehend now. Imagine being able to see like Jordi? The experiments one could do with math and observations of the various spectrum one could observe. You could be engineered to see sound. We could evolve as a species within the lifetimes of many of us.

We need this. The entire species is located (as far as we know) on just ONE planet at the moment. We are fucking around with all of our eggs in one basket; one planet killer event and we are all GONE. That and we have an entire universe to fuck with, and we all fight about retarded shit here, makes me want to "Three Stooges Slap" the entire human race to wake them up. When we get important, scary, power discoveries, it's really vital that we all resist the overwhelming urge to "go full retard". No?

From your post I think you are curious about "the soul". Who wouldn't be? It's amazing stuff, and it's metaphysical, which means it's beyond current understanding sadly. I wouldn't get too excited about losing your soul, because the mechanics of that are too hard to be fucked with by hardware that we currently dick around with. Get back to that subject after we have some cyber augmentations and develop more outlooks on our universe. But I hear you, "I think, therefor I am." If we clone a brain like a harddrive and put the new one in to replace an old one, will it still be "us" in that brain?

Brain clone tech is not to be thought of in terms of our clunky computers. This will be an organic tech, and the tech will need to be able to transfer the consciousness into the new. We will unravel quite a few "secrets" of the universe, gain fresh perspectives on time/space, math will also evolve exponentially just in the "brain clone tech" alone.

Ultimately, we will fuck around and meet "God". Unless he's still playing position and has things still on some "plan". I am betting he does, because he's beyond the tech that even I dream up. With such a mind that can think things into being. Too me that isn't such a stretch considering energy/matter relationships. The problem is we are like a science experiment that one has to wait generations of our years to observe the reactions and developments thereof. We are probably like fruit flies in relevance to such an entity.

Of course the big picture question to ask him would be "WTF are you doing growing sentient life forms like this on this rock for?" Were you bored? Lonely? Have a job for us? All of the above? Are we the first? Are there other gardens around?" Nag nag nag! Create life forms and all they do is nag you to death. ...anyway.

Re:I always wondered

[Magic5Ball]

You might consider thinking more precisely about the degree to which systems are closed, the characteristics of activity, and their scales.

A brain that only interacts with itself for 70 years will have some interesting dynamics.

Our solar system has been reliably running calculations and resisted assaults on it for several billion years longer than the class of processes commonly called "organic".

Re:I always wondered

[Thiez]

> Show me an articulated robot that moves around as long as humans do without totally falling apart every 3 days/months/years and we can start this discussion.

I think most planes move around at least *as far* as humans do in a lifetime without falling apart. Doesn't that count? The have embraced the "Live fast, die young" philosophy :p

Re:I always wondered

[Thiez]

> Imagine authoring our DNA so that it absorbs metals, converts them into a biological alloy that then becomes our skeletal and muscular system?

Are you high?

> We need this. The entire species is located (as far as we know) on just ONE planet at the moment. We are fucking around with all of our eggs in one basket; one planet killer event and we are all GONE. That and we have an entire universe to fuck with, and we all fight about retarded shit here, makes me want to "Three Stooges Slap" the entire human race to wake them up.

Oh, it seems you are.

Re:I always wondered

[Tempest451]

I think the errors in retrieving memories is part of a "working-as-intended" system in the brain that allows older pathways to break down to make way for newer ones. Makes having total recall seem like a defect rather than an advantage.

Re:I always wondered

[Abstrackt]

But in terms of fundamental solving power, they are both the same.

I want to see a human brain that can solve millions of mathematical problems within a few seconds. It really just depends on how advanced our technology is. I'm willing to bet that, eventually, computers will be able to solve problems that would normally take a very long time in very little time.

I once heard a joke that the only reason computers can do more work than humans is that they don't have to stop to answer the phone, but I think there is a grain of truth to that. Maybe the human brain could do all that math if it didn't have to run so many processes in the background, like breathing for example.

Re:I always wondered

[Steauengeglase]

Nah, someone at Cal Tech decided to setup a Slashdot account for the Biochem Brain.

Re:I always wondered

[Nanosphere]

Non-biological machines may be more durable but require far more energy and resources to operate, repair, and reproduce, so there is a trade off. Remember any molecule that can absorb energy and resist damage will also require more energy to manipulate thus making repair and reproduction more energy intensive. I would hazard a guess that is why life developed and evolved from such molecules, because they were easier to alter.

Re:I always wondered

[Anonymous Coward]

Except our solar system hasn't been running calculations and processing information, we only apply our own calculations to it to describe its behavior.

Re:I always wondered

[gad_zuki!]

So, wait. Worrying about human capacity and wanting to go to the stars is "being high?" Wanting to get beyond our limits and our short lifespans is "being high?"

Pardon me, but we need more people like the GP and less dismissive asses like you.

Re:I always wondered

[Plekto]

Put someone on enough drugs or in a coma and they forget what 12 is as well.

Re:I always wondered

[Anonymous Coward]

But in terms of fundamental solving power, they are both the same.

I want to see a human brain that can solve millions of mathematical problems within a few seconds. It really just depends on how advanced our technology is. I'm willing to bet that, eventually, computers will be able to solve problems that would normally take a very long time in very little time.

They can already solve these types of problems - for instance, in crystallography evaluating an x-ray diffraction pattern to determine a protein structure used to take years. Now computers can do it in hours to days.

Re:I always wondered

[GerryHattrick]

Yes, that too. I'm suggesting that the partial error of being reminded of an analogy, for example, enables an analytical method encoded for one purpose to be applied to a quite different perception (sometimes, of course, with bad results - 'experience' picks the winners).

Re:I always wondered

[phantomfive]

A human can simulate a Turing machine, and (theoretically, no one has proven otherwise) a Turing machine can simulate a brain. You might have to use a paper to augment your memory, since our memories are not optimized to act as an infinite length of tape. This is a different problem, however, than a finite state machine, which can never solve some problems that our brain can solve.

Re:I always wondered

[slackbheep]

I find your theory to be a deep Wednesday at best.

Re:I always wondered

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. That fanciful post was rather inspiring. Not surprising it draws the reactions it did from banal drones.

Re:I always wondered

[thinkbot]

biomechanical stuff can potentially regenerate

Re:I always wondered

[mcgrew]

I always wondered if biomechanical stuff is actually better than "pure" mechanical stuff.

Mechanical stuff breaks down, too, and in my experience breaks down a lot more often. Right now the sound out RCA jacks on my nine year old TV have quit; I'm still trying to decide whether or not to open the damned thing (It's a Sony, for all I know they have C-4 wired in there after what they did to my computer with XCP).

Meanwhile, I'm 59 and have been a cyborg for five years now. I have a device in my left eye that makes me a cyborg, and I fear it breaking far more than I fear biological processes (it was only FDA approved 3 years before it was implanted).

How many 59 year old mechanical devices do you have that still work? Meanwhile, both my parents are alive, my mom's 83 and my dad's 80. My grandmother lasted 99 years despite a LOT of wear and tear. How many mechanical devices last a century?

Re:I always wondered

[Plekto]

Contrary to what Hollywood will have you believe, almost everyone who wakes up from a long-term coma (on the rare instances when they do) has significant brain damage as a result. It's not really that different than altering a mechanical brain would be. Or a really huge blow to the head could do that same thing, of course.
"12" might not be "12". To assume that the human brain is any more or less robust than an artificial one is kind of silly. If anything, the mechanical one would likely be easier to protect from external forces.

Re:I always wondered

[kmoser]

"This one derps to eleven."

Re:I always wondered

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree that metal is a better medium. Just look at any old hunk of junk made of metal leftover from 50 years ago. Metal corrodes, metal ablates, metals are *reactive*. Organic circuits can repair themselves so they will last longer. Metal can be used to house organic circuits in harsh environments, but only for one-time jobs, then you have to replace the metal.

Re:I always wondered

[IDK]

Natural selection has selected for easy reproduction using few materials, that is the same as cheap.

Re:I always wondered

[KingBenny]

Do you mean we have to, like, imbue computers with a sense of mortality so they are pushed to achieve more in a limited lifetime ?

Saving Dr. Bob the trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey "Dr. Bob", thought I'd save you some time so I went ahead and prepared your customized subluxation post:
-----
"It's a very bad idea to have Big Pharma scientists messing around with your neural networks. Your neurons are a finely balanced system that can be destroyed by the slightest change in diet or failure to take the right supplements.

There was an issue not long ago in the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research which showed a definite link between exposure to biochemical inputs and chronic health issues. If you work in the neural field or are exposed to biochemical inputs more than a few times per year, it's imperative that you have your spine and nervous system examined by a Chiropractor. They're trained to detect and treat the issue. Make sure you tell the Doctor that you're there for neural damage and he/she will know exactly where to look for subluxation issues.

Take care,
Bob."

Will it run ...

[Compaqt]

Linux?

More clear

[phantomfive]

take incomplete inputs, interact with each other, and come up with a complete conclusion.

That could describe nearly anything in computing. From the article, it looks like they're doing a form of DNA computing. It's not clear to me from the article what their innovation was. It seems like it's the same stuff that's been going on in DNA computing since the 90s (but please someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Re:More clear

[xkuehn]

Since this is Slashdot, I didn't RTFA but I'm answering anyway. :)

Neural networks are a computing model just like Lambda Calculus, Turing Machines, the Von Neumann model, etc. They are all equivalent by the Church-Turing Thesis.

Neural networks, also known as parallel distributed computing or a bunch of other names, is a biologically inspired parallel computing model with a very vague definition. Now there are some authors who use narrow definitions, but under most just about any form of processing with multiple processing nodes can be viewed and analysed as a neural network. Even reading/writing RAM has been used in this manner, to build hardware "RAM discriminator" NNs.

My personal guess would be that the researchers saw "Hey! This looks like a neural network!" and my answer is "Yeah, everything does."

Re:More clear

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to pre compute all the neural weights
And then, they can you can generate a specific DNA-computer than "runs" the network
(The innovation seems to be that instead of computing ADD or IF operations, they are computing
a linear-threshold-operation which is useful for very basic neural simulations)

No word on how to alter the weights.
No capability to "self learn" or modify any of the network parameters
And apparently no ability for deep networks

Sigh...

Re:More clear

[IDK]

No built in mechanism no, but that is where genetic algorithms comes in. Say one would build this into a cell, that could multiply, and then you designed a virus that only let those you want to survive which you can kill by another chemical, then you would have a very cheap platform that can learn anything. Just make a tank of food, put a single of these cells in it. Wait a little, put some viruses in, wait a little, put some virus killer in and repeat.

Computer Virus

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon, Japanese Enzephalitis will be a computer virus.

Not a "tiny brain"

[SwedishPenguin]

A neural network is not a "tiny brain", it's an idea that was inspired by how the brain works, but it's nowhere near a "tiny brain". I didn't RTFA but this sounds like something like a hopfield network, i.e. a neural network that can retrieve something stored in its "memory" from inputs that share many of the characteristics of that memory, much like the human memory.

Mind and Brain

[John Allsup]

The Mind thinks, the Brain only connects those thoughts to the body, acting like a switchboard. The Brain can be used for rudimentary thoughts, but little beyond that. Sooner or later these 'scientists' must realise that: this conclusion is inevitable from basic considerations of the maths involved and basic natural assumptions drawn from everyday experience.

Re:Mind and Brain

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if I share your belief, it's still unproven* and therefore not scientific.
Note that the contrary is not more proven*.

We somewhat understand the visual cortex and can do some small conjectures about higher cognitive things, but our understanding is still too limited to even begin answering THE question.
I believe this understanding will improve up to the point of, someday, stop this status quo. I really hope so, even if there is the risk I may be wrong in my beliefs.

Since science can not answer it yet, anyone yelling that one is true and the other is not is basically just spreading their beliefs, no science.

* even if some people claimed proofs of it, it is not widely accepted, not widely enough that is.

Sorry for AC post. I really should sign in one day, as post usually get modded up a lot less as AC it seems.

Re:Mind and Brain

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if I share your belief, it's still unproven* and therefore not scientific.

No offense but I think you need to read up on basic philosophy of science.

I, too, must apologise for the AC post. I'm getting 503'ed when I try to log in ATM.

Overlords

[xclr8r]

I for one welcome our new tiny brain overlords. Oh wait! we already have those.

Re:Overlords

[FlyingGuy]

Indeed, right between our legs.

Brain & Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Not proven ?

Just look at it from an economics (the science of vested interests) point of view : once those nifty meditation results, albeit subjective, are definitely proven, what would be the point of the whole western medecine scheme ?

It's been acting on the (definitely unproven) supposition that you are the body, that thoughts can only originate from the brain, and that action-at-a-distance (think magnets, the ionosphere & your micro-wave oven) cannot possibly have any connection with their discipline ...

It's also been acting on the pretense that the whole research on para-psychology does not exist ...
It's also been acting as if accupuncure can only have a localized effect ...
It's also been acting as if hypnotized people cannot make their skin burnt with a simple rock ...

In short, "science", and especially "medecine" (whatsoever hides behind that word is economically transparent), acts like there's nothing to be learnt from the half-million of years that human beings have been living on this planet, and restrict us to the american & european chemical business of the 1900's.

In obscure (because of the vested interest in making you shell out money) research papers, meditation has been proven to lower stress & related blood pressure, increase overall happiness, reduce proneness to illness, make you smarter, and so on, and so on ...

Follow the money, and you'll realize that the point of the medical business is NOT to make you healthy, but to make more and more people sick.

Follow the ancient wisdom from all over the world, and you'll discover how deep a lie you've been presented.

Posting AC ... because we're not yet in too deep a Brave New World.

This is NOT newsworthy

[Anonymous Coward]

1) neural nets are neither a new nor astonishing technology. Nor are they how a brain actually behaves, despite being consciously modeled after an extremely simple version of how the brain does, very broadly speaking, work in some very limited aspects. Very limited.

2) We've known for a long time that it's possible to build computer and programs out of anything we can use as AND and OR gates. This is just one of those thing- among many. It happens to be "squishy", which sexes it up a lot.

3) putting the two above together is not a leap of anything. It's not uninteresting but it's not a breakthrough in AI. Perhaps it's a breakthrough in engineering. Not my field.

4) Not my field, but the rest of the above is.