06w01:1 The Human Machine Posted January 2nd, 2006 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2006 week 01 number 1 (the human machine) Happy New Year. – Timothy ——————————————————————— DNA seen through the eyes of a coder | Bert Hubert http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/ “This is just some rambling by a computer programmer about DNA. I’m not a molecular geneticist. […] I’m not trying to force my view unto the DNA – each observation here is quite ‘uncramped’. To see where I got all this from, head to the bibliography. […]DNA is not like C source but more like byte-compiled code for a virtual machine called ‘the nucleus’. It is very doubtful that there is a source to this byte compilation – what you see is all you get. The language of DNA is digital, but not binary. Where binary encoding has 0 and 1 to work with (2 – hence the ‘bi’nary), DNA has 4 positions, T, C, G and A. Whereas a digital byte is mostly 8 binary digits, a DNA ‘byte’ (called a ‘codon’) has three digits. Because each digit can have 4 values instead of 2, an DNA codon has 64 possible values, compared to a binary byte which has 256.” Personal Identity, Neuroethics and the Human Brain | Michael S. Gazzaniga http://realserver.princeton.edu:8080/ramgen/lectures/20050414gazzanigaVN350K.rm Note: links to RAM file. Source page. A great and very illuminating presentation. —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Monday 02 January 2006 @ 3:10 PM
