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Published On: Apr 14, 2004 07:30 AM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Apr 14, 2004 07:30 AM
DNA Computing
Looks like another major advance in DNA
computers! Just think, someday you could hock a lugie on the ground in Iraq and
get arrested for exporting a supercomputer!
In 2001, researchers at the
Weizmann Institute of Science
in Israel, made headlines when they created a
computer so small that a single drop of water would hold a trillion of the
machines. The device used DNA and enzymes as their software and hardware and
could perform a billion operations per second with 99.8% accuracy. Now, as
reported by National Geographic
, the same team, led by Professor Ehud Shapiro, has
announced a new version of its biomolecular computer, 50 times faster than its
predecessor, that not only reads DNA as data but actually uses it for fuel. The
Guinness Book of World Records has recognized it as the world's "smallest
biological computing device". "Once the input, software, and hardware molecules
are mixed in a solution it operates to completion without intervention," said
David Hawksett, the science judge at Guinness World Records. "If you want to
present the output to the naked eye, human manipulation is needed." Two
spoonfuls could hold up to 30 million billion of the computers, and they could
perform 660 trillion operations per second--nearly 20 times the speed of the
Earth Simulator
in Yokohama, Japan, the world's most powerful
supercomputer.
Shapiro and his colleagues described their new DNA computer in a report published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . DNA computing is in its infancy, but it could one day transform the future of computers, especially in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. Some scientists predict a future where our bodies are patrolled by tiny DNA computers that monitor our well-being and release the right drugs to repair damaged or unhealthy tissue. "Autonomous bio-molecular computers may be able to work as 'doctors in a cell,' operating inside living cells and sensing anomalies in the host," said Shapiro. "Consulting their programmed medical knowledge, the computers could respond to anomalies by synthesizing and releasing drugs.
Shapiro and his colleagues described their new DNA computer in a report published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . DNA computing is in its infancy, but it could one day transform the future of computers, especially in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. Some scientists predict a future where our bodies are patrolled by tiny DNA computers that monitor our well-being and release the right drugs to repair damaged or unhealthy tissue. "Autonomous bio-molecular computers may be able to work as 'doctors in a cell,' operating inside living cells and sensing anomalies in the host," said Shapiro. "Consulting their programmed medical knowledge, the computers could respond to anomalies by synthesizing and releasing drugs.
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