Replies to post #227432 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

fuagf -- have been stockpiling stuff on the topic/topic area for some time, has been a while since I addressed in a post -- there have been/continue to be major breakthroughs in re quantum computing since/beyond the reach of that one, including in just the last week or so -- and beyond that a lot of other/further stuff generally in re artificial intelligence and robotics -- bottom line, with or without the vastly larger further domain/horizons that will be opened up with quantum computing, AI and/with/embodied in robotics, both far beyond our scope/capabilities, are well on the way and will be here much sooner than most have any idea (and in some respects already are) -- our time as the top species or even type/form of life here is rapidly passing/coming to an end; we will soon be left behind by our own creations

[fuagf]

F6, the D-Wave posts .. A Strange Computer Promises Great Speed
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85974962

found via a Burnaby search. A couple more on high tech stuff.

How DNA Computers Will Work - by Kevin Bonsor
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dna-computer.htm

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An Introduction to DNA and Quantum Computers
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/lsp/TL166/ppframe.htm

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The future of computing power – from DNA hard drives to quantum chips
Computer memory has increased rapidly over the past few decades but, as scientists struggle to reduce the size of conventional
computer chips any further, these advances will sooner or later hit a wall. So can nanotechnology offer a way forward?

[...]

The idea exploits the fact that electrons do not exist in a single fixed state, but can simultaneously exist in many states at once. Each state can be assigned a property, rather like the binary code used to encode information in the "bit" of a standard computer, which is represented either as 0 or 1. The difference between a standard computing bit and a "qubit" (quantum bit) is that the latter can be both a 0 and a 1 at the same time.

This means many calculations can be performed simultaneously – a quantum computer with just 42 qubits would match the fastest supercomputer in Europe, JUGENE, which is capable of one quadrillion operations a second.

[...]

In its simplest sense, a computer is just a machine capable of performing computations. It doesn't have to be electronic. Tom Ran, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, works with computers made out of strands of DNA.

"Working this way, we can get three trillion computers, working in parallel, in a space the size of a water droplet," he says. The 0s and 1s of conventional computers are replaced with the four DNA bases: A, C, G and T. Operations can be translated into strands of DNA using these bases, and the way the DNA strands interact with each other produces new strands which can be decoded as output values.

The attraction is that these inherently biological computers can interact directly with living cells. One goal is to programme DNA-based computers to work inside the body to combat disease. Take cancer as an example – chemotherapy drugs currently target all rapidly dividing cells, including, for example, hair cells; a DNA computer could be programmed to identify and kill only cancerous cells.

Ongoing work to miniaturise conventional computers on the nanoscale, as well as the manipulation of individual atoms and strands of DNA to bring us entirely new types of calculating machines, is pushing the boundaries of what the computers of tomorrow can achieve. Computing has come a long way since the days of the floppy disk.
http://www.theguardian.com/nanotechnology-world/the-future-of-computing-power-from-dna-hard-drives-to-quantum-chips

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Lab on a Chip - Issue 12, 2008

Miniaturisation for chemistry, physics, biology, materials science and bioengineering

[...]

Received 30 Sep 2008, Accepted 15 Oct 2008
First published online 05 Nov 2008

Recent humanitarian efforts have led to the widespread release of antiretroviral drugs for the treatment of the more than 33 million HIV afflicted people living in resource-scarce settings. Here, the enumeration of CD4+ T lymphocytes is required to establish the level at which the immune system has been compromised. The gold standard method used in developed countries, based on flow cytometry, though widely accepted and accurate, is precluded from widespread use in resource-scarce settings due to its high expense, high technical requirements, difficulty in operation-maintenance and the lack of portability for these sophisticated laboratory-confined systems. As part of continuing efforts to develop practical diagnostic instrumentation, the integration of semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots, QDs) into a portable microfluidic-based lymphocyte capture and detection device is completed. This integrated system is capable of isolating and counting selected lymphocyte sub-populations (CD3+CD4+) from whole blood samples. By combining the unique optical properties of the QDs with the sample handling capabilities and cost effectiveness of novel microfluidic systems, a practical, portable lymphocyte measurement modality that correlates nicely with flow cytometry (R2 = 0.97) has been developed. This QD-based system reduces the optical requirements significantly relative to molecular fluorophores and the mini-CD4 counting device is projected to be suitable for use in both point-of-need and resource-scarce settings. .. http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/lc/2008/b817116e#!divAbstract