As an IT professional, my job is about as far away from research computing as you can get. I work for a big oil and gas company, and the apps I build for them are based on solving their particular issues and not on the theoretical or the new-fangled.

The end result is I’m no expert in what is happening in the realm of theoretical computing, but I find it all fascinating. Quantum bits, petaflops… so much interesting stuff!

But I had never heard of a DNA computer before. Holy smokes that is cool. The article I just linked to is actually entitled World’s Smallest Computers Made of DNA and Other Biological Molecules Made to ‘Think’ Logically. And that rather verbose title cleanly sums up the article. They’ve made these little chains of DNA that they can program, and they can get them to answer questions based on logic. It starts easy (IF all men are mortal AND Socrates is a man THEN Socrates is mortal) but then they start, as they say on The Jefferson’s, Movin’ On Up. They even have a compiler to translate from a higher level programming environment down to DNA code.

Tell me that’s not completely bad ass.

Jim