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NAND Gate Built From Bacteria
thodelu writes "Scientists have taken another step towards biological computing, with the creation of logic gates from gut bacteria and DNA. While something similar has been done before, the team says its logic gates behave more like the standard electronic version. They're also modular, which means that they can be fitted together to make different types of logic gates, paving the way for more complex biological processors to be built in the future."
Did they have to use "gut" bacteria? I hear it's what gives crap its lovely odor.
Nice. Next step towards creating genetic symbotes that a person can interact with to mentally self-diagnose, control, and regenerate the body!
Even the smallest bacteria are around 300 nanometers in diameter. State-of-the-art silicon processes have a minimum feature size around 22 nm or so -- plus or minus a generation or two -- so the transistors made in these processes (less than 100 nm in diameter) are significantly smaller than the smallest bacteria. It would depend on the layout rules in the specific process, but it's likely that one could make a NAND gate (4 transistors) in a modern process, fit within a 300-nm circle -- including contacts.
Of course, "the interesting thing about a dancing bear isn't how well he dances, but that he dances at all." Biological computing is interesting and valuable for reasons other than the size of the devices. It's just a never-ending source of amazement (at least to me) that we've gone beyond bacterium-size and are now into virus-size transistors -- and the inorganic molecule-size transistors are on the horizon.
These would likely be more useful for long time-scale things- e.g. environmental sensors etc. where the bacteria would have less upkeep than a conventional computer or possibly for uses like drug delivery or production
Since NAND gates can be combined to make AND, OR, and NOT gates, this means that bacteria could theoretically realize any logic circuit. Cool stuff.
Does genetic computing have a chance of getting faster than traditional circuits? It seems to me like something too big and complicated to be quick.
Devices could include sensors that swim inside arteries, detecting the build up of harmful plaque and delivering medications. Other sensors could perhaps detect and destroy cancer cells inside the body.
Now we have organic computers, and we use bacteria to make stuff for us like insulin and plastics and stuff...
Ever wonder whether we're all a giant part of a large computer?
You may enjoy reading The evolution of the past tense - how verbs change over time by Ed Yong.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Knowing E. coli? Probably somewhere between a day and a week. Bacterial DNA replication is really lousy. Anything that doesn't contribute to keeping the cell alive tends to get a little messed up when it's allowed to reproduce freely.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
"Slant" by Greg Bear had just such a computer in it. Actually, it also had bees and I think other forms of life as well (worms, other insects). I guess everything in science-fiction comes true at some point.
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
There is a professor named Eric Klavins at University of Washington who was doing this like 2 years ago. I toured his lab and I think he already had all the basic logic gates working, and they were working on getting an oscillator going. Here is his site in case you are interested. http://depts.washington.edu/soslab/mw/index.php?title=Main_Page
now get 42 million of them in less than a quarter inch square at 180nm thick, then you would be up to a decade old pentium 4
yes but its not the most efficient use of space
for example it takes a couple of transistors and a couple resistors to make a nand gate, using a couple of them you can make them into a and gate. In contrast you can make an and gate with 2 diodes.
E. coli in your blood? Doesn't sound very healthy to me ...
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
So writing a computer virus could involve either hacking the software running on the bacteria NAND circuits... or could involve writing a bacteriophage that attacks the circutiry itself.
Or what if a bacteria learned how to colonize and take-over a human brain? Just like the Borg!!! I'm in your brain, hacking your dreams.
As if it wasn't bad enough worrying about computer viruses, now we have to worry about computer bacteria too, and computer bacteria viruses (bacteriophage hacking).
Oh well, this is still cool as hell.