dna computers in the distant future

Just the other day, I was reading a thread about the supposed prices for nehalem processors. Many people suggested that nehalem will only be a slight improvement (party due to the fact that silicon based hardware is starting to reach its fullest potential). Today, I read an article (on an site that promotes environmentally friendly ideas) about the personal computers of the future. Check out the article (YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED).

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1913/71/

If all goes as planned, these computers will run on little or no external power. What do you guys think of this? If this does occur, (and all of the major companies invest in this technology) do you think that we will finally have some more fearsome competition in the world of computers?

True, but it will be really sweet when they are available to consumers. Then perhaps intel won't be the invincible giant that everyone thought. I found a more detailed article about it too.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com [...] puter.html

ya know, I was very much thinking "skynet" and organic computers evolving and kicking the crap out of us.

When you start messing with the building blocks of life, "simulated" or not, you're asking for trouble.

lol wouldn't want those crazy nurses running around.

I think you guys are getting a little more than slightly ahead of yourselves. If you read the articles, you'll see that the limitations of this are immense when trying to do the types of tasks that traditional binary computers perform. None of those "trillions of operations" performed by enzymes on a DNA molecule are binary operations of any sort. They likely just create proteins, or in the case of the DNA computer which outputs results in terms of different sized DNA bits, it only solves extremely specific problems, by using enzymes that cut the DNA at specific markers. So for now, the problem of putting the correct information into DNA format for the enzymes to rip apart and then run a gel to see what sized pieces come out, is a much more complicated and difficult problem and requires the solution essentially to create the problem! It's not at a stage where the output of these so-called computers is even really very useful or easy to detect. You'd have to have complex optical or chemical sensors that responded either to the protein output from the DNA template, or optical sensors to read the base construction of the DNA... at which point it's probably simpler to just read the base-pair information and solve the problem with a traditional computer.

At least that's how it is now... these are not even close to being useful. In fact, they're further from being useful at solving important or difficult problems than quantum computers.

My DNA is running at 5Ghz but I have a cooling problem. Do they have little DNA heatsinks I can get?

this is messing with god's creation and is the work of the devil, you will all burn in hell for this.

I'm terrified.

Just wait untill some crackhead scientist really gets the hang of nano robots and lets them out of the lab. All kinds of crazy stuff could happen, mmm crazy stuff.

Actually, because DNA is based on only 4 bases, you can very easily convert those 4 bases into binary (ie A=00, T=01, G=10, C=11) or something like that. It is indeed true that creating enzymes is a pain, thus alot of work on how to read off DNA computing is actually using optical methods rather than tradition electrophoresis methods.

Also, scientists aren't really messing with the building blocks of life. They are simply arranging a chemical compound into a specific sequence. Its not like they are trying to splice DNA into living organisms.

Uh... this thread is displaying some wildly inaccurate ideas and some fantastical imagination. While nuclear-powered personal vehicles would be impractical, they would hardly "go boom". The critical mass for most radioactive materials is FAR greater than what would be used in small nuclear generators.

Also, all of this "messing with nature" garbage. People, get a grip. The chips you use now are "messing with nature". Sure it's not changing any living thing (but neither is using DNA in a test tube to solve simple problems), but all of the elements in use are very certainly natural. It's not like they create Ununpentium (yes, it's an actual element, although artificially created and quite unstable, atomic nr 115) to power your Pentiums. Isn't silicon god's creation too? I'm sure glad he gave it a band-gap like he did, it's extremely useful for your computer that humans made from it.

DNA, while a code-base for proteins, is not anything more than a very large molecule built of many very simple monomers (the bases). As unreal_havoc points out, it's not like this DNA must be put into living organisms - the molecule simply has useful electrical properties and is already a natural way to store data. In fact, if you were to express a problem in DNA, and parse it with various enzymes, I doubt very highly that the DNA molecule problem, or the result would have any use whatsoever. It's extremely unlikely that it would even code for anything! Much less a harmful protein.

Oh, and unreal_havoc, that's not binary... that's a base-four number system. Still could be interesting, I just don't see how it would be used... how do you express a problem, and how do you parse it? What's the input, and what's the output?

^Hehe, I just figured you must have meant that, since an atom driving a car is an even more ridiculous idea. An a single unstable atom wouldn't put off enough energy to... well, to do much of anything. It'd throw some neutrons, protons and gamma rays about and then it'd be over with and you'd still be sitting in your driveway.

But they are just using chemicals to make machines. I understand that if they used DNA to clone people then it would be really bad. Don't get the wrong idea, I am a devout church-going catholic. I think that it is ok to make these types of computers AS LONG AS the research isn't also used to recreate life. You have to remember that all knowledge can be used to do good and evil (ex. nuclear research---->atomic bomb + nuclear power plants). Also, what makes dna computers worse than regular computer? Regular computers can be used to do everything from meeting people online to buying things to getting child porn. It all depends on what humans choose to use them for.

^Agreed - and that's basically the point I wanted to make - the idea isn't inherently dangerous or bad or evil. Humans could distort it in that way, possibly, but this one seems relatively safe to me at the moment.

Also, just for clarity: DNA doesn't do work. The enzymes it codes do work, using chemical energy in the form of ATP (mostly). I think this "requiring no energy" thing is hocus pocus. It requires energy, as does all work. It's just in a different form. It won't run on petroleum, but it might run on ATP, or if integrated into simple cells, those could run on glucose, and produce the ATP necessary. Note that we already do this kind of thing! We inject specific genes into certain strains of e. coli and let them make up a whole lot of the protein we're interested in. This is how we mass-produce insulin for diabetics. It's a great tool, and I hope that it is used to produce more things as we learn how to manipulate the DNA strands, so that we can have the e. coli workers produce lots of helpful proteins for us!

I guess you do.

read two posts up.

i do expect people on here to be of the level of intelligence to know that that post could be taken in no otherway than sarcastic.