Tuesday, February 25, 2003

DNA Computers  Automatons, the molecular computers composed of DNA were described this week by Shapiro and colleagues in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  This tiny nanocomputer can perform 330 trillion operations per second or roughly 100,000 times greater than the speed of our current PC’s. These devices are also quite fuel efficient since the single DNA molecule that provides the computer with the input data also provides all the necessary fuel. It helps to understand this if we think of the DNA as the software and the enzymes as hardware. As these molecules undergo a chemical reaction, this results in simple operations. Scientists can instruct the devices to perform certain operations by controlling the composition of the DNA (software) molecules. A trillion bio-molecular devices could fit into a single drop of water. Instead of showing up on a computer screen, results are analyzed using a technique that allows scientists to see the length of the DNA output molecule. Sources: Scientific American 10:39:05 PM    comment []

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