Scientists Create Artificial Transistor Gates from E.Coli, DNA

[hetneo]

[citation][nom]au_equus[/nom]"he conceded that they are not close to actually producing them for actual products." i.e., it will be 15-20 yrs before anything useful comes out of it."we hope that our work could lead to a new generation of biological processors" doubt it. There was never one in the first place and never will be. There are no real advantages that this research provides over existing tech. 1. silicon and molecular-based circuitry is way more advanced2. E. coli is a living organism, thus the following factors have to be controlled: a. sustenance b. reproduction c. cell death d. mutations3. E coli by itself is already 2 micrometers (10^-6) long. a. Molecular nanomachines being built are exactly that: sizes range from 10^-8 to 10^-7 meters. b. intel fab process is already or in the process of mass producing IB, which is already several magnitudes smaller than the E. coli itself4. E. coli is an opportunistic organism. If in your blood stream, it will lead to sepsis, shock, and death. Last thing I want is an E. coli -based computer floating in my blood stream.[/citation]
This is just an experiment. But it could lead to creating technology that could produce medical biological computers, as article states anyway.

Aim of this is not to provide replacement for CPUs of today, but new intelligent medication and medical equipment. This has great potential because no matter how small inorganic robot/computer is it will be detected as pathogen by body, this type of technology can overcome that obstacle.

 

[Massacher]

this is not good. I am envisioning a Skynet type scenario. it's best to abandon this research before it's too late.

 

[hetneo]

[citation][nom]ngoy[/nom]I have no idea which moron modded you down but I got you back to zero at least. People have absolutely no concept of what happens genetically and what COULD happen if these things happen to mutate. Did the downrater watch or read I Am Legend or see Contagion? Guess what you moron, some movies and books have some basis in fact. Go read some early science fiction novels and see how many things we have now that people only dreamed of then. Or read about the Broad Street Cholera outbreak. 150 years ago, humans didn't know that crapping near your water supply was bad. If it looks clear, it must be ok! We are messing around with stuff we barely understand.[/citation]
No, they are "messing around" with stuff you don't understand at all. 59 years ago we didn't know what DNA looks like, today we can manipulate it to our benefit. Please don't give me anti-GE food crap because oil eating bacteria often used to clean spills are GE organisms.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]au_equus[/nom]"he conceded that they are not close to actually producing them for actual products." i.e., it will be 15-20 yrs before anything useful comes out of it."we hope that our work could lead to a new generation of biological processors" doubt it. There was never one in the first place and never will be. There are no real advantages that this research provides over existing tech. 1. silicon and molecular-based circuitry is way more advanced2. E. coli is a living organism, thus the following factors have to be controlled: a. sustenance b. reproduction c. cell death d. mutations3. E coli by itself is already 2 micrometers (10^-6) long. a. Molecular nanomachines being built are exactly that: sizes range from 10^-8 to 10^-7 meters. b. intel fab process is already or in the process of mass producing IB, which is already several magnitudes smaller than the E. coli itself4. E. coli is an opportunistic organism. If in your blood stream, it will lead to sepsis, shock, and death. Last thing I want is an E. coli -based computer floating in my blood stream.[/citation]You ignored the fact that they also made DNA gates. That's significantly more intriguing than e. coli since it's actually small and not alive.

Considering the fact that we can already embed chips in rats (also insects) to make them do things, we're only a couple years from beetle mounted cameras and a decade from widespread testing for paralysis embedded IC treatment. I'd like to hear how small these DNA transistors get and what kind of heat they can take--I'm skeptical as to whether they'd be feasible to pursue instead of graphene.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]ngoy[/nom]I have no idea which moron modded you down but I got you back to zero at least. People have absolutely no concept of what happens genetically and what COULD happen if these things happen to mutate. Did the downrater watch or read I Am Legend or see Contagion? Guess what you moron, some movies and books have some basis in fact. Go read some early science fiction novels and see how many things we have now that people only dreamed of then. Or read about the Broad Street Cholera outbreak. 150 years ago, humans didn't know that crapping near your water supply was bad. If it looks clear, it must be ok! We are messing around with stuff we barely understand.[/citation]DNA strands you put in the body don't do much mutating to turn people into PCP zombie acrobats (I am Legend)--they give you cancer. So unless you're putting it into YOUR blood stream, you have nothing to worry about. If they were inserting random strings of RNA into poorly researched psuedo-living protein jumbles--then you could make some bad stuff like mad cow. But e. coli won't do much worse than cause sepsis. I think you're giving these movies too much credit. Have you seen/read The Andromeda Strain? Because that's a terrible example of science (erroneous explanation of evolution).

 

[eddieroolz]

E.Coli is one thing I never imagined would work as a transistor gate, to be honest.

 

[Au_equus]

i guess somebody is admitting they don't have a brain in their head?!

when the scientist was referring to biological processors, he was using computer processors as reference. does the brain have biological transistors or does it function using 1s and 0s? try using your brain to comprehend the comment...

 

[Au_equus]

[citation][nom]dalauder[/nom]You ignored the fact that they also made DNA gates. That's significantly more intriguing than e. coli since it's actually small and not alive.Considering the fact that we can already embed chips in rats (also insects) to make them do things, we're only a couple years from beetle mounted cameras and a decade from widespread testing for paralysis embedded IC treatment. I'd like to hear how small these DNA transistors get and what kind of heat they can take--I'm skeptical as to whether they'd be feasible to pursue instead of graphene.[/citation]
What is said in the article is misleading, as is with any scientific article that is rewritten for the masses. They think we are too dumb to understand what is written in black and white.
They used the DNA to modify the bacteria, most likely by an insertion into the plasmid via retrovirus or shock therapy, common methods used to mass produce polypeptides (i.e., insulin)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/icl-scc101711.php
the "0" and "1" signals are produced by chemicals. DNA by itself would not survive well in the human body in the digestive tract or the blood stream as the immune system would recognize it as foreign and destroy it immediately. As I stated earlier, E. coli is an opportunistic organism, quite the contrary to the person who wrote the original article who says its a "harmless gut bacteria."

 

[Guest]

you're wrong,E.coli is not virus...it is probably protista or monera...virus is smaller