Well ladies and gentlemen, we've done it, we've made life. While this is a biological rather than a technical breakthrough, I still thought it deserves a special mention here because of the possibilities it creates for the tech industry and computing at large.
In case you haven't heard, scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute have for the first time created an artificial cell. The cell body is 'natural' however how it operates, the "software" of the cell, was created by the scientists, who used existing bacteria cells as a blueprint, and created a new genome which was then transplanted into a vacant cell membrane. Obviously all this science babble is quite confusing, so I'll just go ahead and explain what this means for the world.
Basically the ability to create bacterial cells we define and control means we can pretty much make them do what we want, instead of trying to find such bacteria naturally occurring in nature. We can create bacteria that eats Greenhouse gases and spits out oxygen, eats up oil spills in just a few days, or, and here's the good part, can function as a biological computer.
Theoretically, we could tell such synthetic cells to do anything, including act as processors and memory, or store information. Why do we need cells as processors? Well because in general, biology is far more efficient than technology. Think about it, your brain works faster and stores more information than any current super computer, while being a fraction of the size. If we could harness this biological technology, and combine it with computing, we could see super computers the size of iphones, that may even grow to accommodate more information.
While this future of living computers is years away, in creating synthetic life, scientists have made a strong step toward it. In addition to this, many other applications for such cells could be seen in the near future, such as the production of vaccines and toxic cleanup.
In case you haven't heard, scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute have for the first time created an artificial cell. The cell body is 'natural' however how it operates, the "software" of the cell, was created by the scientists, who used existing bacteria cells as a blueprint, and created a new genome which was then transplanted into a vacant cell membrane. Obviously all this science babble is quite confusing, so I'll just go ahead and explain what this means for the world.
Basically the ability to create bacterial cells we define and control means we can pretty much make them do what we want, instead of trying to find such bacteria naturally occurring in nature. We can create bacteria that eats Greenhouse gases and spits out oxygen, eats up oil spills in just a few days, or, and here's the good part, can function as a biological computer.
Theoretically, we could tell such synthetic cells to do anything, including act as processors and memory, or store information. Why do we need cells as processors? Well because in general, biology is far more efficient than technology. Think about it, your brain works faster and stores more information than any current super computer, while being a fraction of the size. If we could harness this biological technology, and combine it with computing, we could see super computers the size of iphones, that may even grow to accommodate more information.
While this future of living computers is years away, in creating synthetic life, scientists have made a strong step toward it. In addition to this, many other applications for such cells could be seen in the near future, such as the production of vaccines and toxic cleanup.
-Havok
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