They got it down to 473 genes, but let's say that minimal life is some 20 of those genes. A brute force approach would require trying 10^34 combinations[1]. And

They got it down to 473 genes, but let's say that minimal life is some 20 of those genes. A brute force approach would require trying 10^34 combinations[1]. And that's already with the simplifying assumption that 20 genes is the minimal set rather than 19 or 106 or some other subset. [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=473+choose+20 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=473+choose+20