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DNA and Computers

DNA and Computers

DNA and Computers. Randall Niles dives into the Digital Code inherent in all living things. The DNA molecule is one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. First described by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, DNA is the famous storehouse of genetics that establishes each organism’s physical characteristics. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is a double-stranded molecule that is twisted into a helix structure (similar to a spiral staircase). The DNA molecule is comprised of chemical bases arranged in approximately 3 billion precise sequences. Even the DNA molecule for the single-celled bacterium, E. coli, contains enough information to fill an entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica. The four bases that make up the stairs in the spiraling staircase are adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). These stairs act as the “letters” in the genetic alphabet, producing detailed instructions for the formation and functioning of the host cell. The A, T, C and G in the genetic code of the DNA molecule can be compared to the “0″ and “1″ in the binary code of computer software. Like software to a computer, DNA is a genetic language that communicates information to organic matter. Although DNA code is remarkably complex, the information translation system that interprets DNA is what really baffles science! Like any language, letters and words mean nothing outside the shared convention that gives those letters and words meaning. Indeed, the DNA molecule is an
Video Rating: 3 / 5

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25 Comments

  1. Comments  judoisoww   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 9:59 am

    funny ribonucleic acid is made up of elements found in the primordial “goop” and polypeptides needed to form deoxyribonucleic acid also can form in chemical mixes like those found in the primordial earth . your using your ignorance as an argument for god. i ask you this if our lord did make all life on earth and programed our DNA why then can we find inert genes in whales that are the fully capable of growing legs if reactivated and why do chickens posses the code to produce teeth? why would he?

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  2. Comments  CSalvarani3   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 10:01 am

    “if you were to put all of the code into books, you could fill the grand canyon a few time over with just the digital instructions, the code, that is inherent in the human eye”

    That is an outright lie. The entire human genome is approximately 800 megabytes. So, we can store an entire human’s genome on a chip the size of a fingernail. The text of the bible is approximately 4 megabytes, so the entire human genome can be encoded in around 200 bible-length books – that fits into the back of a truck

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  3. Comments  reflect7   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 10:07 am

    The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer engineering journal. (Richard Dawkins)

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  4. Comments  thirdLeg   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 10:08 am

    DNA is not a language.

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  5. Comments  camilocuesta   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 10:48 am

    It’ll provide a lot my friend. But it is more what computer languages can provide into understanding the DNA language.

    What happens, is that DNA turns a out to be a software language, just like C++ or any of the computer langues we use. The fact that the molecule of life is a small computing machine, is the most amazing discovery. Now, you do reverse engineering on that language and on that machine, and we’ll be closer in understanding where life comes from.

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  6. Comments  carpediemwth   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 11:28 am

    makes so much sense ..simple deduction..great video

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  7. Comments  toobsucker   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 11:35 am

    @KP23anda

    Look up the string theory. this theory proposed by Hawkings only works when you have 11 dimensions as an input to the theory

    Science is becoming aware of other dimensions as well as the connection the mind has to the universe from quantum physics

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  8. Comments  KP23anda   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 12:12 pm

    PS. I don’t say that God doesn’t exist, that has yet to be proven but there’s a better chance of finding alien life. We just found water on the moon, and we have yet to visit another planet. What advances have been made into the unseen spiritual world?

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  9. Comments  KP23anda   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 12:41 pm

    I get what “gdykes” is saying, don’t pick on him for getting his numbers wrong.
    So, the “alien put it there” argument is silly but the God argument is not? To me it sounds like the exact same argument. This planet and everything in it is a product of millions of years of change NOT coincidence or chance.

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  10. Comments  toobsucker   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 1:21 pm

    @gdykes Digital codes do not arise naturally

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  11. Comments  thejobloshow   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 2:02 pm

    I thought this video was about DNA computing.

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  12. Comments  RockleTim   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 2:12 pm

    wtf happened at the end it turned into a christian video. Clean-cut smiling guy should have given it away

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  13. Comments  pt2091   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 2:46 pm

    Forgive my ignorance, but DNA’s quaternary structure will provide what for a computer? Will it allow for probabilistic outcomes? Could anyone provide an example?

    Also, is this concept kind of like 32 and 64 bit systems? Or is that totally different?

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  14. Comments  meka4996   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 3:31 pm

    You are so funny! “Scientific”???

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  15. Comments  reflect7   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 3:59 pm

    Where did you get trillions of years? You say it three times, so you must have a few definitive sources, eh? Let’s see… Mainstream Science puts the Big Bang at something near 15 billion years, Planet earth at about 4.5 billion years, and first complex life in the Cambrian Explosion at about 500 million years… OK, you’ve got 500 million years… GO.

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  16. Comments  gdykes   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 4:20 pm

    DNA doesnt just pop out of goop
    Its taken trillions of years a number of years so grate nobody seems to understand what that number actually represents.
    With the natural minerals on the earth and the natural cycles that our planet has been through over trillions of years will create a planet which eventually comes to be aware of its self.
    DNA is not designed, it is a product of its environment over trillions of years.

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  17. Comments  gregrutz   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 4:31 pm

    It evolved using natural selection.

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  18. Comments  Adnezal   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 4:33 pm

    DNA is a language… a sophisticated kind that cannot be compared to an actual language, because it is based on mathematics. DNA is a logic used to decipher the full language of the universe, which is also mathematics. Languages here on Earth, which have alphanumeric properties, can be used to decipher DNA logic and universal logic (i.e Hebrew, which in actuality is a mathematical meditation and not a language)

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  19. Comments  TheScienceFoundation   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 4:33 pm

    and?

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  20. Comments  zvonkom   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 5:06 pm

    “DNA carries information in a very computer-like way, and we can measure the genome’s capacity in bits too, if we wish. DNA doesn’t use a binary code, but a quaternary one”

    Richard Dawkins

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  21. Comments  zvonkom   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 5:16 pm

    DNA is a molecule, but in living cells it is used to encode information. And yes – our genes contain “abstraction layers”, have you ever heard of Homeobox or PAX genes? For example, in that language PAX-6 means “eye”. Experimentally is proven that PAX-6 gene from mouse will trigger eye development in fruit fly (Gehring 1994), even if those are completely different in structure.

    So – there is “DNA language” and it is very complex, contains abstraction layers, subroutines, design patterns etc.

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  22. Comments  jhbbunch   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 5:50 pm

    Now you do write the program that is compiled into a instruction set as to which links are fused or unfused to create the logic (think schematic diagram) and downloaded to the chip (that’s right, you download the hardware). This is where DNA differs. It does not download the schematic instructions. Rather by a feedback process with the environment the links become mutable and change. Maybe a link being changed creates an AND gate where there had been an XOR gate.

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  23. Comments  jhbbunch   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 6:00 pm

    DNA is not a language. Language has an abstraction layer. You can have different spellings for a word in different languages and they all mean the same thing. This is abstraction. DNA does not have an abstraction layer. It is hard-wired. It is not software. I think it is more like a programmable logic chip, like an FPGA. An FPGA has fusable links that when burned in a certain configuration creates a logic circuit out of basic logic gates. (I believe NOR gates are used to emulate all other gates)

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  24. Comments  skevoid   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 6:49 pm

    If only Dr Francis Crick had had you there to tell him that it was created by magic, he wouldn’t have had to resort to a theory about aliens.

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  25. Comments  elvismilk   |  Sunday, 11 July 2010 at 7:47 pm

    Exactly, and until these nutjobs can prove what supernatural DNA is, they have no case.

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