News First game-playing DNA computer revealed

From New Scientist:

The first game-playing DNA computer has been revealed - an enzyme-powered tic-tac-toe machine that cannot be beaten.

The human player makes his or her moves by dropping DNA into 3 by 3 square of wells that make up the board. The device then uses a complex mixture of DNA enzymes to determine where it should place its nought or cross, and signals its move with a green glow.

The device, dubbed MAYA, was developed by Milan Stojanovic, at Columbia University in New York, and Darko Stefanovic, at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Kobi Benenson, who works on other DNA approaches at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, says the work demonstrates the most complex use of molecules as logic gates to date, and "represents a significant advance in DNA computing."

Full story here

So what if it can't rival silicon at the moment? A few years ago, they didn't even think they'd get this far. It's like most advances in the world - they start off sci-fi and become sci-fact.

For example - who'd have thought that diamond semiconductors would ever be used or developed? Yet here they are, just around the corner.

 

i cant wait for ghost in the shell type neural plug ins!

 

what happens if you sneeze?

 

Must take forever to decide where to go. It'd be dead cool watching this green glow slowly appear in the correct square though

EDIT:
Thinking about it I don't know if DNA computer would be that great. Enzymes don't work especially fast at all. I think they should concentrate on making a CPU out of neurons and have the circuits change dynamically as they are needed, just as they do in our brains.

 

and thats the type of stuff i'll be doing at uni in a year or two

 

Watching the DNA computing advance is very cool, even though I want to be doing Quantum computing myself

 

DNA would make a good code storage medium, but for code execution, use nerons if you want a biological basis, or a quantum computer for electricle.
Still cool to see as there essentally write their on language based on DNA.