The living nanocomputer is here
by friver ~ June 4th, 2008. Filed under: Strange Research.
What’s so small you can’t see it with the naked eye, has DNA spliced into it, and can solve computer science problems?
It’s the DNA computer!
Here’s the layman explanation, as far as I understand it:
Scientists have found a way to insert a bit of DNA into a living bacterial cell, and the DNA turns the cell into a living calculating machine. The actual experiment involved a pretty esoteric math problem which the DNA computer solved by flipping its own DNA patterns, but suffice it to say that on this particular problem, the tiny nanocomputer outperformed today’s full-sized PCs.
Of course we won’t be using cell-sized PC’s to play World of Warcraft anytime in the foreseeable future, but oh the possibilities…
