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Biological Supercomputers Powered By ATP Could Be A Reality Some Day (dispatchtribunal.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the molecular-motor-propelled-agents-in-nanofabricated-networks dept.

hypnosec writes: Our cells are powered by Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and according to a new study, they could be a power source for the next generation of biological supercomputers capable of processing information very quickly and accurately using parallel networks in the same way that massive electronic super computers do. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the paper describes a model of biological computer that is effectively a very complex network in a very small area, and is based on a combination of geometrical modeling and engineering know-how (on the nano scale). Researchers involved with the study claim that it is the first step in showing that this kind of biological supercomputer can actually work.

9 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Old news by penguinoid · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm a biological supercomputer that runs on ATP. Well, sugar and caffeine really, but it's converted to ATP in between.

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    1. Re:Old news by penguinoid · · Score: 4, Funny

      In case you're wondering, use a hardware-based neural net to learn and store data. All my components are fully biodegradable and non-toxic. My capabilities include real-time video processing and object identification, full voice recognition, and the ability to pass the Turing Test. You can download both my blueprints and full base code here. The full download is pretty small; smaller than a modern computer game in fact.

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    2. Re:Old news by MaxSmoke · · Score: 2

      I bet you release a toxic cloud time to time..

    3. Re:Old news by hene · · Score: 3, Funny
      Once they get this production ready, I hope that bug fixes are compatible because I have a long list of those.
      • Algorithms that background process(es) use to defragmentation and dedublicating data are severely flawed and continually cause data loss.
      • The storage medium is ridiculously unstable and corrupts data in unacceptable rate.
      • When retrieving from the cold storage, latency is too high to be practical in almost any real world situation.

      Just to mention a few. Could use that quicker information processing they advertise too.

    4. Re:Old news by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2

      The full download is pretty small; smaller than a modern computer game in fact.

      That's just the wetware design, you forgot to mention the 30+ years of programming effort it took to get you up to being a reasonably functional member of the collective.

  2. Re:The problem by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    What's really sneaky is that every lab demo of a biological supercomputer is actually a production-ready biological supercomputer showing off some crude little toy that will be 5 years out for the next few decades.

    The trick is just to ignore whatever is on the benchtop and grab the guy talking about it.

  3. ATP source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    so finally humans are going to be milked to produce ATP.. where have I seen this in the movies.. matrix?

  4. Re:PNAS? by wbr1 · · Score: 2

    We had some female visitors to the big PSAS building today....

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    Silence is a state of mime.
  5. Did I miss something? by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2

    Our cells are powered by Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and according to a new study, they could be a power source for the next generation of biological supercomputers

    When did we get this generation of biological supercomputers?