DNA Seen Through The Eyes Of A Coder

[Brainstorm 0]

The language of DNA is digital, but not binary. Where binary encoding has 0 and 1 to work with (2 - hence the 'bi'nary), DNA has 4 positions, T, C, G and A.
Whereas a digital byte is mostly 8 binary digits, a DNA 'byte' (called a 'codon') has three digits. Because each digit can have 4 values instead of 2, an DNA codon has 64 possible values, compared to a binary byte which has 256.
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Dynamically linked libraries (.so under Unix, .dll on Microsoft) code cannot use static addresses internally because the code may appear in different places in memory in different situations. DNA has this too, where it is called 'transposing code'
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Cells can be likened to state machines, starting out as a stem cell. Over the lifetime of the cell, during which time it may clone ('fork()') many times, it specializes. Each specialization can be regarded as chosing a branch in a tree.
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Each DNA Helix is redundant in itself - you can see the genome as a twisted ladder whereby each spoke contains two bases - hence the word 'basepair'. If one of these bases is missing, it can be derived from the one on the other side. T always binds to A, C always to G. So, we can state that the genome is mirrored within the helix. 'RAID-1' so to speak.

Furthermore, there are two copies of each chromosome present - one from each parent, with the notable exception of the Y chromosome, which is only present in males. The actual details are complicated - but most genes are thus present twice. In case one is broken or unusefully mutated, the other independent copy is still there. This is what we would normally call 'failover'.
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This dogma tells us that DNA is used to make RNA and that RNA is used to make proteins, which is like saying that from a .c file comes a .o object file, which can be compiled into an executable (a.out/exe).

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Some code is sacred. We may not remember who wrote it, or why - we just know that it works. The guy who thought it up may have left the company already. Such code is not to be tinkered with.

DNA knows the concept of the 'molecular clock'. Some parts of the genome are actively changing and some parts are sacrosanct. A good example of the latter are the Histone genes H3 and H4.

The H3 an H4 genes have a *zero* effective mutation rate in humans. But it goes far beyond that. You share almost the exact same code with anything from chickens to grass or moulds.

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

This information is very interesting. It goes to show that, after all, life is composed of abstract patterns. It's logical! Evolution is like thought. Nature is still miles away from our ordinary computer codes. Any opinions about this?

[illini319 0]

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
This information is very interesting. It goes to show that, after all, life is composed of abstract patterns. It's logical! Evolution is like thought. Nature is still miles away from our ordinary computer codes. Any opinions about this?

there are now people trying to generate, with mixed success, DNA based computers. As you have mentioned, because DNA has a base of 4 rather than the binary 1 and 0, it has inherently more computing power than our current machines. Here is an article on a DNA computer: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

In brief, they estimate that their DNA computer can calculate 330 trillion operations per second; a value 100,000 times faster than the average PC (at least in 2003).