SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Researchers have made great progress in recent years in the design and creation of biological circuits — systems that, like electronic circuits, can take a number of different inputs and deliver a particular kind of output. But while individual components of such biological circuits can have precise and predictable responses, those outcomes become less predictable as more such elements are combined.
A team of researchers at MIT has now come up with a way of greatly reducing that unpredictability, introducing a device that could ultimately allow such circuits to behave nearly as predictably as their electronic counterparts. The findings are published this week in the journal Nature Biotechnology, in a paper by associate professor of mechanical engineering Domitilla Del Vecchio and professor of biological engineering Ron Weiss.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Wednesday November 26 2014, @03:00PM
The big problem with this kind of thing, while cool and all, is that the biological interactions are a whole different kind of medium than electronic circuits. You won't have success in reproducing electronic circuits in biologic ones. It's incredibly difficult to "program" a XOR gate, yet the biological systems (not circuits) drive organisms of unfathomable complexity.
You'd need a *different* kind of problem to solve, to use a biological circuit. The question is that nobody know what problem is it.
I'd place my bet on simpe massively parallel circuits and probabilistic computing, but that's just me.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!