3 ms·
Currently it takes about 9 to 10 hours of computer time to simulate a single division of the smallest cell — about the same time the cell takes to divide in its
by gliese1337 14y ago
Currently it takes about 9 to 10 hours of computer time to simulate a single division of the smallest cell — about the same time the cell takes to divide in its natural environment.
So, it's a realtime simulation! Cool, although wholly incidental.
It's hard to tell from the article exactly how fine-grained the simulation actually was. Was it actually at the level of tracking individual molecules, or did each "cell object" just keep track of, e.g., concentrations of different types of molecules?
Also, I wonder if this will have any long-term impact on things like the Open Worm project ( www.openworm.org ).
- karpathy 14y agoAgreed, i spent a while looking for this. Looking at Figure 1B in the paper though suggests that it is the latter. There are no actual molecules bouncing around.
- jkarr 14y agoWe used a combination of tracking concentrations and individual molecules. For specific macromolecules like DNA polymerase, RNA polymerase, ribosomes, etc we kept track of the position of each individual molecule. For other things like glucose, water, etc with very high copy number we just kept track of the copy number. I agree modelling entire organisms will ultimately require large collaborations, potentially through projects like Open Worm.