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Computer Independently Solves 120-Year-Old Biological Mystery

posted by n1 on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the obsolete-resources dept.

AnonTechie writes:

For the first time ever a computer has managed to develop a new scientific theory using only its artificial intelligence, and with no help from human beings.

Computer scientists and biologists from Tufts University programmed the computer so that it was able to develop a theory independently when it was faced with a scientific problem. The problem they chose was one that has been puzzling biologists for 120 years. The genes of sliced-up flatworms are capable of regenerating in order to form new organisms -- this is a long-documented phenomenon, but scientists have been mystified for years over exactly what happens to the cells to make this possible.

By presenting the computer with this problem, however, it was able to reverse engineer a solution that could explain the mechanism of the process, known as planaria. The details discovered by the computer have been published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, along with the artificial intelligence method used to develop the theory.

The significant thing that the two researchers Daniel Lobo and Michael Levin were hoping to discover was not how new tissue is generated, but how it knows what shape and proportions to grow in. That sacred information is locked away in our genes.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-06/05/computer-develops-scientific-theory-independently

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @12:45AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @12:45AM (#194320)

    The genes of sliced-up flatworms are capable of regenerating in order to form new organisms -- this is a long-documented phenomenon, but scientists have been mystified for years over exactly what happens to the cells to make this possible.

    By presenting the computer with this problem, however, it was able to reverse engineer a solution that could explain the mechanism of the process, known as planaria.

    There was that cancer story on here the other day where they talked about "treating oncology" rather than "treating cancer":

    Roy Herbst , chief of medical oncology at Yale Cancer Centre, described the results as "spectacular". "I think it's huge," he said. "I think we are seeing a paradigm shift in the way oncology is being treated.

    https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/06/04/1340257 [soylentnews.org]

    These stories appear to be written in a language that uses the words I am used to, but reassigned meaning or strange phrasing. It is the tower of babel all over again.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @12:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @12:15PM (#194482)

    You don't get it. The computers are writing the summariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @10:20AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @10:20AM (#195731)

    No that was correct, that's a paradigm shift in how the field of oncology is being treated, in that immunotherapy is becoming a near-term possibility, where before oncology was mostly surgery, radiation, and chemo therapy. So the field itself is being revised, due to a new type of treatment. Badly phrased yes.