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Scoop.it!
Researchers in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering have developed a new noninvasive system that allows people to control a flying robot using only their mind. 
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Scoop.it!
Scientists believe they are close to building the first truly biological computer made from the organic molecules of life and capable of working within the living cells of organisms ranging from microbes to man.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
More on natural computation theme and using biomaterials for information processing.
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Scoop.it!
From
phys
Present in almost in every cell, microRNAs are known to target tens to hundreds of genes each and to be able to repress, or "silence," their expression. What is less well understood is how exactly miRNAs repress target gene expression. Now a team of scientists led by geneticists at the University of California, Riverside has conducted a study on plants (Arabidopsis) that shows that the site of action of the repression of target gene expression occurs on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a cellular organelle that is an interconnected network of membranes—essentially, flattened sacs and branching tubules—that extends like a flat balloon throughout the cytoplasm in plant and animal cells
Phillip Trotter's insight:
I think this is fundamentally important. As a programmer - microRNA reminds me of microcode running on multiple parallel processes . With this work showing that ER membranes are essential for microRNA activity. The last line of the article nails it: "Our work shows that an integral membrane protein, AMP1, is required for the miRNA-mediated target gene repression to be successful. As AMP1 has counterparts in animals, our findings in plants could have broader implications." Full paper in Cell
Scoop.it!
Everybody knows a computer is a machine made of metal and plastic, with microchip cores turning streams of electrons into digital reality. A century from now, though, computers could look quite different.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
We tend to think of computing as being defined by digital or analog electronics. However if you consider computation as a process of transforming an input, through a ordered series of operations to either transform (or maintain) state or generate an output then you find it all over the place. Natural computation is literally all around us in every living cell and in non living chemical reactions and structural and systemic interactions. Harnessing this insight for useful applications is driving new developments in computation, synthetic biology and systems sciences. In a great article by Brandon Keim at Wired - examples of such systems - from DNA to slime mold based computation / are described and pictured. To learn more click on the image or title.
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The study goes far beyond fun and games (though how much fun could you have with this? :-) ) and has the long term potential to help people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases.The study was published today in IOP Publishing's Journal of Neural Engineering. A University of Minnesota video of the robot in action can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpHy-fUyXYk. Click on the link or the image to learn more.