from the mr-betteridge-is-your-computer-made-of-slime? dept.
janrinok writes:
Elsevier have published a report based on research work carried out jointly by British and German universities. The report claims:
A future computer might be a lot slimier than the solid silicon devices we have today. In a study published in the journal Materials Today, European researchers reveal details of logic units built using living slime molds, which might act as the building blocks for computing devices and sensors.
Andrew Adamatzky (University of the West of England, Bristol, UK) and Theresa Schubert (Bauhaus-University Weimar, Germany) have constructed logical circuits that exploit networks of interconnected slime mold tubes to process information. One is more likely to find the slime mold Physarum polycephalum living somewhere dark and damp rather than in a computer science lab. In its "plasmodium" or vegetative state, the organism spans its environment with a network of tubes that absorb nutrients. The tubes also allow the organism to respond to light and changing environmental conditions that trigger the release of reproductive spores.
In earlier work, the team demonstrated that such a tube network could absorb and transport different colored dyes. They then fed it edible nutrients oat flakes to attract tube growth and common salt to repel them, so that they could grow a network with a particular structure. They then demonstrated how this system could mix two dyes to make a third color as an "output".
Using the dyes with magnetic nanoparticles and tiny fluorescent beads, allowed them to use the slime mold network as a biological "lab-on-a-chip" device. This represents a new way to build microfluidic devices for processing environmental or medical samples on the very small scale for testing and diagnostics, the work suggests. The extension to a much larger network of slime mold tubes could process nanoparticles and carry out sophisticated Boolean logic operations of the kind used by computer circuitry. The team has so far demonstrated that a slime mold network can carry out XOR or NOR Boolean operations. Chaining together arrays of such logic gates might allow a slime mold computer to carry out binary operations for computation.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday March 29 2014, @12:32AM
Now we need another mod for Minecraft.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Tork on Saturday March 29 2014, @12:59AM
Slashdolt logic: 1600 x 1200 > 1920 x 1200
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Saturday March 29 2014, @03:19AM
Yes! Finally! The lower levels prove their cred on the higher level! I mean, if slime mold can produce circuits, what are hardware engineers? Opps, did I say that out loud?
(But actually, I class this with all the recent "medical conditions that could be caused by women named Jennifer". If I had Lyme disease, I would be pissed. Let us not devolve to the level of CNN, and bring in Psychics to explain, well, everything. Oh crap, no more, resistance is futile, we cannot tell the difference between causality and random bullshit. Yet, the earth is only 30 seconds old.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday March 29 2014, @12:51PM
What are you on, and can I have some?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @03:47AM
A logic gate with a propagation time measured in minutes.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday March 29 2014, @04:15AM
I was amazed that I was actually able to access the article without paying some outrageous paywall toll. But still, anyone who is a scientist, or even a intellectual, will boycott Elsevier because of their unethical conduct. Ethics counts in science. Shame. Elsevirer.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @05:17AM
Is this where the "blob" in the movie "The Blob" really came from.
I for one welcome my slimy overlord/overlords?..?