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Living Cells Turned Into Computers
ananyo writes "Synthetic biologists have developed DNA modules that perform logic operations in bacteria. These 'genetic circuits' could, for example, be used by scientists to track key moments in a cell's life or, in biotechnology, to turn on production of a drug at the flick of a chemical switch. The researchers have encoded 16 logic gates in modules of DNA and stored the results of logical operations. The different logic gates can be assembled into a wide variety of circuits."
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these babies.
Wait, I guess that's like basically just a person.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Hello, world. Stop. Boobs!
I'd be more excited if they could dead cells into live ones.
I suppose the ability to store data and program instructions in DNA would enable a Von Neumann architecture. The possibility of simulataneous "operations" on different parts of the genome might even make common bus based bottlenecks (where data cannot be fetched simultaneously with an instruction) less of a limit. But the speed of the thing would be agonisingly slow compared to silicon. Massively parallel perhaps but slow as a wet week.
You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle.
I'd be even more excited if there was a laser involved somewhere.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Don't forget Greg Bear. That book is a trip-and-a-half.
Combine this with the previous article and one could have a built in doctor.
We all know what happens when bio-gelpacks on our starships catch a cold!
Now there's a film adaptation I would pay money to see. Not that anyone has ever even mentioned the remotest possibility of making a film of Blood Music, but man, it needs to be done.
Forge of God
Eon
Blood Music
Dead Lines (his one ghost story).
I'd pay to see all those. I just mentioned it and the discussion was that a lot of Blood Music is internal dialog and it would be hard to represent without making it boring.
I think Dead Lines could be done in a Poltergeist-esque manner and is probably the easiest to do out of all of them.
--
BMO
I think I'll wait until these results can be verified by real biologists.
These 'genetic circuits' could, for example, be used by scientists to track key moments in a cell's life or, in biotechnology, to turn on production of a drug at the flick of a chemical switch.
Code-Monkey Translation: ... }
Scientists, lacking a good debugger for living organisms, have made a breakthrough: They're now able to employ the tried and true tradition of adding
printf( "Made it here and didn't crash!" );
and/or
if ( DEBUG && VK_LSHIFT_DN ) {
code into bacteria.
Despite the platform being in open beta for as long as anyone can remember and its undeniable popularity the world over, professional coders experienced with situations that require resorting to this technique in undocumented code, badly supported 3rd party plug-ins, and poorly understood niche embedded systems, are advising the scientists to wait for the more mature 1.0 release of the DNA API specification before implementing their own domain specific language on the platform.
Laser zombie coprocessor-cats.
(Like regular laser cats, except with less SNL and more lifespan and bra[aaaa]ins for Folding@home.)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Getting closer all the time. Cybernetic enhancements, nanobots/nanoprobes, and a few transhumanist cults.