4 ms·

All I can think about after reading that is how to create some set of logic gates for data transfer. What if different combinations of the parts of a virus coul

All I can think about after reading that is how to create some set of logic gates for data transfer. What if different combinations of the parts of a virus could be formed into different actual viruses and produce a single new output variant. For Example, you could combine 00, 01, 11, 10 and then the two part virus would output the result of a NAND operation. We could have naturally occurring computations in nature. Each mosquito could be seen as a single "cpu" and it's output would be to infect another mosquito. Not sure how you'd collect all the results though, or how you'd not just have endless cycles... perhaps the life of each individual cell could be encoded in DNA/RNA where two virus parts can only come together if their DNA/RNA has the same "clock cycle" encoded (similar to lamport/vector clocks).

jcoffland 10y ago
How would you order the operations?
- dmichulke 10y ago
  Not an expert but I suppose it's sufficient if you model the virus such that an eventual equilibrium is (or contains) your solution.
  - jcoffland 10y ago
    That's some serious hand waving.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  That's where encoding in in RNA would be important, think about just a monotomically incrementing clock tick from one virus generation to the next, two cells would only merge if they had the same clock. I basically know nothing about what's possible in RNA/DNA, but my understanding is that RNA can be used to adjust DNA, which could essentially increment a clock tick.
Balgair 10y ago
If you are really interested in learning more about genetics and DNA, try reading this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21766/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21766/ The Central Dogma and all it's exceptions are fascinating stuff. It all acts like a computer in many ways, but since it has to balance on the edge of statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics and has a very angry set of Maxwell's Demons (say, a lambda virus) always coming in and messing it all up, DNA has evolved many very cool features.
labster 10y ago
That's a CPU with a built-in fan.

jcoffland 10y ago

How would you order the operations?

dmichulke 10y ago
Not an expert but I suppose it's sufficient if you model the virus such that an eventual equilibrium is (or contains) your solution.
- jcoffland 10y ago
  That's some serious hand waving.
bluejekyll 10y ago
That's where encoding in in RNA would be important, think about just a monotomically incrementing clock tick from one virus generation to the next, two cells would only merge if they had the same clock. I basically know nothing about what's possible in RNA/DNA, but my understanding is that RNA can be used to adjust DNA, which could essentially increment a clock tick.

Balgair 10y ago

If you are really interested in learning more about genetics and DNA, try reading this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21766/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21766/ The Central Dogma and all it's exceptions are fascinating stuff. It all acts like a computer in many ways, but since it has to balance on the edge of statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics and has a very angry set of Maxwell's Demons (say, a lambda virus) always coming in and messing it all up, DNA has evolved many very cool features.

labster 10y ago

That's a CPU with a built-in fan.