Call me old-fashioned, but I want some analog-computing being done with biological systems. I’m never comfortable with digital thinking with biological macromolecules. On-off systems built on chemical concentrations and macromolecular binding just don’t seem to make sense to me.
Eh, there are folks doing this who are smarter than me, so I suppose I need to see more systems built to teach the point to me.*
Link: RNA-based logic gates compute inside cells
Detecting tetracycline isn’t especially interesting, but RNA that binds to specific small molecules is actually relatively easy to make; repeated rounds of amplification and selection for binding can evolve these RNAs in a couple of days. This means that, in a matter of days, researchers can grow yeast colonies that glow in response to a variety of chemicals, or even to combinations of chemicals.
*Really bummed out that I will be missing _another_ Long Now talk (I’m in SFO two weeks prior). Especially this one with Drew Endy, bio-engineer extraordinaire. I was so looking forward to meeting him. Oh, well. Thank goodness for the video feed.
