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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Coconut99 99 (talk | contribs) at 03:21, 13 March 2008 (→dubious operation speed claim of molecular automaton). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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The information given for dna computing is far too less, especially when u compare with other articles on models of computing and and also on computational complexity theory. It would be proper if whoever is maintainig this page also gives more info on the various NP complete problems that have been solved by this form of parallel computing and their respective links.

Moved this para from the article, it doesn't make much sense as it written. Could the original author clarify this? --Lexor 10:44, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The DNA computing technology is related to the micro mechanical technology (that also use DNA for structural and mechanical constructions) (switches, gates, etc...).

There are two major aspects to "DNA computing". The first is for computation in the classical sense, that is for obtaining answers to problems, ala Adleman. The second is for construction of nano-scale assemblies. DNA can be used to create structures at the nanoscale. Researchers (Erik Winfree, Nadrian Seeman, John Reif, LaBean, Jonoska, many more) are investigating what structures can be built, and what things (such as carbon nanotubes) can be attached to the structures. Many possible uses for nano-electronics, nanoscale medical devices, and other nanodevices.

FYI -- Adleman solved the 7 vertex Hamiltonian Path Problem, not the Traveling Salesman Problem.


Computer made of poo?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DNA_computing&diff=10197883&oldid=10066215

I can't see any references elsewhere to imply the computer was made of feces, so can we remove this edit on the assumption it's a hoax?

DNA equivalent of bit?

Regular computers work on binary digits (bits). DNA-strand, however, has 4 different kinds of units, it's not a binary system. From 3, we have ternary and from 5 quinary, but what do you call a system with 4 digits? -130.232.66.34 12:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Quaternary. M. Amos

Also, I don't think the calculation is right

1 gram of DNA ca 650g/mol base pairs 1.54 mmol * 6.02e23 /mol 9.26e20 bases In octets of bases, this is 9.26e20/8=1.16e20 octets In teraoctets, this is 1.16e20/1e12=1.16e8 teraoctets

If you say that a base is simply a bit, this is 1.16e8 terabytes, or 1.16e20 bytes, or 116 etabytes. If you say a base contains two bits of information* we have 232 etabytes.

  • Say we say purines (A and G) are 1s, and pyrimidines (C and T) are 0s. An A contains the piece of information (A and NOT G), and so on. This is twice as much information.
  • This only accounts for natural bases. Using Steven Benner's notation of puXXX and pyXXX for purine-like and pyrimidine-like bases with a three hydrogen-bond pattern, we have 2*2^3=16 possible three-hydrogen bond bases, and 8 possible two-hydrogen bond bases. Each of these bases potentially could contain twelve bits, yielding 1.392 zettabytes.

I often see this 750 terabyte number thrown around, and it's trash. If someone wants to wikify this text and incorporate it, it's empirically true, a reference would only be required for the "Benner notation" (not widely used as the term for it). A good reference is:

"Redesigning Nucleic Acids." Steven A. Benner, Thomas R. Battersby, Bernd Eschgfaller, Daniel Hutter, Janos T. Kodra, Stefan Lutz, Tuncer Arslan, Daniel K. Baschlin, Monika Blattler, Martin Egli, Christophe Hammer, Heike A. Held, Jennifer Horlacher, Zhen Huang, Birgitte Hyrup, Thomas F. Jenny, Simona C. Jurczyk, Marcel Konig, Ulrike von Krosigk, Michael J. Lutz, Lawrence J. MacPherson, Simon E. Moroney, Eugen Muller, Krishnan P. Nambiar, Joseph A. Piccirilli, Christopher Y. Switzer, Johannes J. Vogel, Clemens Richert, Andrew L. Roughton, Jiirgen Schmidt, K. Christian Schneider, and Joseph Stackhouse. Pure and Applied Chemistry. Vol 70, No. 2, p263-6 (1998).

24.181.29.106

Incorrect info

1st of all, i'm an Israeli junior-high student, and i am in a project called "Young researchers" that started the Weizmann institute, in that project me and my friend were chosen to research the "DNA computer" aka Bio-Computer and at some point of the research we were able to enter the Weizmann Bio Research lab and there we talked to Benny Gil, which is one of the original researchers that works very closely to Ehud Shapiro, although we were there only 2 times, we learnt loads of info, and i must say that at least half of whats written here is incorrect info, and i intend to write my own article about the bio computer myself.

Go ahead, just provide references. --Carbonrodney 08:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A Question

just wondering whether or not the DNA computer (or the Quantum computer for that matter) will ever replace the PC at home in such tasks as Word Processing, internet browsing, gaming and the like or will it forever stay in the research labs of the world. also will there still be conventional components such as a CPU, RAM and a hard disk drive ( or the flash drive which is expected to become the mainstream mass storage device) or will they be replaced by something totally new or will they incorporate this new technology into these pre-existing components to increase there performance? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.59.252.35 (talk) 14:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Completely useless

I think that this page fails to address many problems of DNA computing. IMO, it is completely useless and mainly a novelty thing.

  • For small problems, computers can solve them easily. With increasing speed and parallelism of CPU, more and more problems belong to this category.
  • For larger problems, there are many issues.
  1. Limited applicability of the method.
  2. The mess of DNA which is needed to represent the problem can become prohibitively large. The mess is not scalable.
  3. Synthesizing such long base pairs and large amount of DNA becomes a very difficult task. Such synthesis is not scalable.
  4. The preparation and processing time are just too long to make it worth while even if it is automated.
  5. Experiments can fail due to many reasons such as DNA degradation, the secondary structure of DNA, etc.

In contrast, computers are far more scalable. There are many existing technologies that explore the use of massive number of computers on the internet. For instance, SETI@home has 3 million users to help with their project. Coconut99 99 (talk) 11:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

dubious operation speed claim of molecular automaton

The claim part where trillions operations / sec is very irritating because

  1. the operation is not comparable
  2. not counting pre-processing and post-processing time
  3. the "computer" is essentially measuring the concentration of input using an automaton switch. It is really like comparing the watt a CPU uses (i.e. number of electrons flowing through a CPU per second) against actual computations performed. It just does not make sense. In that case, old mainframes in the 50s would certainly claim the speed champion.

I don't mean to put down the work which was very interesting, just the operation / sec claim was bad. Coconut99 99 (talk) 03:14, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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