Living cells ‘hacked’ and hijacked by MIT the universe is a Computer

a reply to: neoholographic

Dude... wow, you really got it all wrong.

originally posted by: FamCore
a reply to: neoholographic

I'm learning a lot following this thread. S & F OP, happy I stumbled into here

That's great and thanks.

Here's more from a recent paper.

Researchers find surprising similarities between genetic and computer codes

Computational biologist Sergei Maslov of Brookhaven National Laboratory worked with graduate student Tin Yau Pang from Stony Brook University to compare the frequency with which components "survive" in two complex systems: bacterial genomes and operating systems on Linux computers. Their work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Maslov and Pang set out to determine not only why some specialized genes or computer programs are very common while others are fairly rare, but to see how many components in any system are so important that they can't be eliminated. "If a bacteria genome doesn't have a particular gene, it will be dead on arrival," Maslov said. "How many of those genes are there? The same goes for large software systems. They have multiple components that work together and the systems require just the right components working together to thrive.'"

Using data from the massive sequencing of bacterial genomes, now a part of the DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase), Maslov and Pang examined the frequency of usage of crucial bits of genetic code in the metabolic processes of 500 bacterial species and found a surprising similarity with the frequency of installation of 200,000 Linux packages on more than 2 million individual computers. Linux is an open source software collaboration that allows designers to modify source code to create programs for public use.

phys.org...

This is EXTREMELY INTERESTING especially if you know about Linux and computer programming in general. This goes to the argument of intelligent design. There's parts of the system that can't function without all of the components in place. They can't thrive in the environment without these components working together. This is what intelligent design calls irreducible complexity.

Here's more:

It may seem logical, but the surprising part of this finding is how universal it is. "It is almost expected that the frequency of usage of any component is correlated with how many other components depend on it," said Maslov. "But we found that we can determine the number of crucial components – those without which other components couldn't function – by a simple calculation that holds true both in biological systems and computer systems."

For both the bacteria and the computing systems, take the square root of the interdependent components and you can find the number of key components that are so important that not a single other piece can get by without them.

Maslov's finding applies equally to these complex networks because they are both examples of open access systems with components that are independently installed. "Bacteria are the ultimate BitTorrents of biology," he said, referring to a popular file-sharing protocol. "They have this enormous common pool of genes that they are freely sharing with each other. Bacterial systems can easily add or remove genes from their genomes through what's called horizontal gene transfer, a kind of file sharing between bacteria," Maslov said.

More evidence that DNA is a computer code that was designed. I'm just glad it's like Linux and not Windows. I hate Windows.

So how many trillions of monkeys is it taking to type the programs for every blade of grass, every tree leaf, every grain of sand, every snow flake, every raindrop, every hailstone, every...

a reply to: neoholographic

We can...

our only problem is thinking machines are the interface... one day we will realize that we are the interface!

in the phys.org article:

Voigt and colleagues at Boston University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have used this language, which they describe in the April 1 issue of Science

April fools?

You're so stuck on your belief that you're taking metaphor and analogy as literal fact. That doesn't go too well for religious fundamentalists.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: TerryDon79

You said:

Has nothing to do with computers.

Of course it does. It has everything to do with it. The DNA Code is software that carries instructions. With the right computer language we can hack into this computation. This is why he made the point that this could be done by a High School student that knows how to program.

For 15 years bioengineers have been tinkering with genetic code to alter cells manually, but it is laborious and involves a great deal of trial and error.

But users of the new programming language need no special knowledge of genetic engineering. “You could be completely naive as to how any of it works. That’s what’s really different about this,” added Prof Voigt .

“You could be a student in high school and go onto the Web-based server and type out the program you want, and it spits back the DNA sequence.

This isn't just about biology. They have been trying to tinker with the genetic code to alter cells but they couldn't until they came up with a new programming language. Why is that? It's because DNA is a program and like any program it can be hacked into.

genetic sequences and subatomic infrastructure are apples and oranges.

originally posted by: Phantom423
This website has some nice animations of how it all works:
www.pbs.org...

Animations are great, I've found that videos relate everything involved in that process the fastest (cause then you can see the whole operation in action and in 3D as opposed to pictures with inaccurate representations for the enzymes and protein complexes involved in DNA > RNA > protein transcription, translation and folding. As well as some other related operations in the cell). There's a video in this playlist that is very detailed. You might like some of the other videos as well:

Real science, knowledge about realities compared to philosophies and stories

About the article in the OP, I found the article somewhat vague, perhaps someone could figure out a bit more about the lines in the article that say:

...programme them to carry out new tasks.

What new tasks exactly? What's the programming based on exactly and how does it exactly work (are we talking about manipulating genetic switches that regulate gene expression)?

More information perhaps about that from the article but still a bit vague to me:

To create a version of the language that would work for cells, the researchers designed computing elements such as sensors that can be encoded in a bacterial cell’s DNA.

The sensors can detect different compounds, such as oxygen or glucose, as well as light, temperature, acidity, and other environmental conditions.
...
The first programmes altered the function of cells so that they responded to different environmental conditions such as the level of oxygen.

That's so little information, what are the sensors made of? Nucleotides and nucleotide sequences? Or are we talking extra or less repressors (made of proteins that are made of amino acids)? Screwing up the repressors or activating them through other means than usual? I know unicellular bacteria already have mechanisms to detect a variety of environmental conditions, so perhaps there's something that can be compared with when talking about these "sensors"? In what way did the cells respond differently from their usual response to "different environmental conditions such as the level of oxygen"? It's unclear to me what they've actually accomplished (other than claiming and marketing a neat computer program that may or may not be able to come up with viable DNA sequences to use in genetic engineering, that's unclear to me from this article).

Oh, btw, regarding the OP's mention of a "simulation", there's nothing about the tar-water distributing Bishop Berkeley and his philosophy about immaterialism in the article linked to. So there's no need to talk about simulations and perhaps it may be an idea for everyone here to figure out where that idea/philosophy came from and what other suggestions that man has made regarding what's beneficial to either your body or your mind. Remember that philosophies and myths are modified over time, or change (slightly) over time, or additions are made or branches appear. But the core way of thinking remains the same and demonstrates patterns (behavioural sometimes, otherwise it's in the way people talk about these philosophies or how they express their thoughts about it).

Here's one of the mechanisms I spoke of, but there are a whole bunch of different ones. There are also inhibitor proteins you can influence to change the cell's usual response (but it sounds from the article that they coded some nucleotide sequences into the DNA, I'd like to know some specifics about the chain of effects and which codes they used, perhaps borrowed from known codes for repressors, or inhibitors, etc. Or are we talking codes that recognize repressors that are already produced by the cell? So many questions left...):

"Mommy I want a unicorn with zebra stripes."

"Sure dear, but it's going to have to be the size of a puppy, apartment size limits and all. You want it male, female, neither or both?"

originally posted by: neoholographic
This is just more evidence that we live in a computer simulation...

Where would you even get this from the paper?

This paper makes available a high-throughput protocol for techniques that we've been using since the 80's. This just allows us to better design, predict and more precisely control networks.

originally posted by: whereislogic

originally posted by: Phantom423
This website has some nice animations of how it all works:
www.pbs.org...

Animations are great, I've found that videos relate everything involved in that process the fastest (cause then you can see the whole operation in action and in 3D as opposed to pictures with inaccurate representations for the enzymes and protein complexes involved in DNA > RNA > protein transcription, translation and folding. As well as some other related operations in the cell). There's a video in this playlist that is very detailed. You might like some of the other videos as well:

Real science, knowledge about realities compared to philosophies and stories

About the article in the OP, I found the article somewhat vague, perhaps someone could figure out a bit more about the lines in the article that say:

...programme them to carry out new tasks.

What new tasks exactly? What's the programming based on exactly and how does it exactly work (are we talking about manipulating genetic switches that regulate gene expression)?

More information perhaps about that from the article but still a bit vague to me:

To create a version of the language that would work for cells, the researchers designed computing elements such as sensors that can be encoded in a bacterial cell’s DNA.

The sensors can detect different compounds, such as oxygen or glucose, as well as light, temperature, acidity, and other environmental conditions.
...
The first programmes altered the function of cells so that they responded to different environmental conditions such as the level of oxygen.

That's so little information, what are the sensors made of? Nucleotides and nucleotide sequences? Or are we talking extra or less repressors (made of proteins that are made of amino acids)? Screwing up the repressors or activating them through other means than usual? I know unicellular bacteria already have mechanisms to detect a variety of environmental conditions, so perhaps there's something that can be compared with when talking about these "sensors"? In what way did the cells respond differently from their usual response to "different environmental conditions such as the level of oxygen"? It's unclear to me what they've actually accomplished (other than claiming and marketing a neat computer program that may or may not be able to come up with viable DNA sequences to use in genetic engineering, that's unclear to me from this article).

Oh, btw, regarding the OP's mention of a "simulation", there's nothing about the tar-water distributing Bishop Berkeley and his philosophy about immaterialism in the article linked to. So there's no need to talk about simulations and perhaps it may be an idea for everyone here to figure out where that idea/philosophy came from and what other suggestions that man has made regarding what's beneficial to either your body or your mind. Remember that philosophies and myths are modified over time, or change (slightly) over time, or additions are made or branches appear. But the core way of thinking remains the same and demonstrates patterns (behavioural sometimes, otherwise it's in the way people talk about these philosophies or how they express their thoughts about it).

Here's one of the mechanisms I spoke of, but there are a whole bunch of different ones. There are also inhibitor proteins you can influence to change the cell's usual response (but it sounds from the article that they coded some nucleotide sequences into the DNA, I'd like to know some specifics about the chain of effects and which codes they used, perhaps borrowed from known codes for repressors, or inhibitors, etc. Or are we talking codes that recognize repressors that are already produced by the cell? So many questions left...):

I was having a conversation today with the author of this YouTube about deep learning and neural networks:
www.youtube.com...

You always get a lot of bobbing heads in this type of post but not very often questions which go to the heart of the topic.

I think some of the titles and vocabulary are more than a little inflammatory. Words like "Hijack" and titles like "Artificial Intelligence Steals a bank account" - do their job for the general public i.e. scare them to death, but skip right over the extraordinary research that has uncovered a whole new way of understanding the conscious mind.

I asked the author of Deep Learning.TV why humans should become the slaves of deep learning neural networks, which will eventually outsmart any human brain. I suggested that one of the goals of neural networking should be to convert the binary code into code that is adapted to the human brain - the DNA code. Now of course, we all know we are very far from understanding DNA code and how it's translated. But my idea was that the two projects should be a joint effort.
Why? Because if humans are to maintain superiority over what they create, then we have to reverse engineer what we learn from neural networks and embed it in the human brain. Sounds crazy - but it isn't impossible. Remember that neural network technology is founded on human brain networking - it's not exactly an innovation. Nature already did it.

Anyway, I read these articles with more than a few grains of salt. Scaring the public about a potential matrix situation or ATMs that steal your money are sort of stupid IMO. There's a huge potential for this research - but as I said, we should be thinking more about how we can incorporate this technology into the human DNA code and not about how we will become slaves to the very machines that we created.

originally posted by: Phantom423

I think some of the titles and vocabulary are more than a little inflammatory. Words like "Hijack"...

It's actually meant for marketing purposes, people who are into science are more inclined or their curiosity is piqued by a title that includes the words "hacking" or "hijack". This counts for both the researchers making publications or news articles reporting on them (allthough the latter is even more inclined to use words such as "hacking" like the news artcicle did in the OP). There's a saying going around in the so-called scientific community, it says "publish or perish" (which is a reference to making regular publications or perishing in your career, not getting attention, not getting grants or the best jobs, tenure, etc.). Which also counts for the need to market your research well, if no one is interested in your research or you can't pique their interest, the research project won't last long. The man in this video makes a short mention of the need for marketing (which sometimes comes in the form of propaganda specific to selling a product, sometimes this product being philosophies/ideas) your scientific work as well as a clue as to what options it opens for those who want to control the flow of information to the public (shortly after 2:30):



The video above is also in the playlist I shared earlier. Quoting you again:

Remember that neural network technology is founded on human brain networking - it's not exactly an innovation. Nature already did it.

Just a heads up, it wasn't the 'hidden' God of the Gaps: Mother Nature, that did it (see the sign at 7:39 in the video above). That would be an illogical conclusion since the laws of nature (or nature) do not have any engineering capabilities (or access to or ability to develop the required nanoscale and smaller technology). Notice the comment about "nature did it" in this video after 6 minutes (it's best to skip the first 6 minutes anyway if you don't want to hear confusing things):

a reply to: svetlana84

Found the original article here. Dated March 31, 2016.

Now, where can I find the source code for the language? It says they are waiting to release a UI for browsers, but I am ready to tinker with this.

epigenetics (gene maleability) is linked to our mind and thus our behaviors. Our actions and beliefs are constantly influencing the programming of our body. I would suggest downloading and upgrading your love capabilities to the highest potential if you want to experience the greatest hardware/software ever experienced by the human computer. Humility, pacifism and altruism also help remove malware from the system.

originally posted by: Phantom423
Nature ... did it.

Oh btw, not to be annoying but to inform, another way to phrase the philosophy that way of thinking is based upon (how it grew into popular thinking in human society) would be:

'Gaia did it'.

originally posted by: ventian
a reply to: svetlana84

Found the original article here. Dated March 31, 2016.

Now, where can I find the source code for the language? It says they are waiting to release a UI for browsers, but I am ready to tinker with this.

They have some places where you can look over the code. Like I said, DNA is already computing. We're just hacking into that computation program and alter DNA in ways that we want to.

You can check out some open source code here:

github.com...

You can also access Cello through here:

www.cellocad.org...

a reply to: neoholographic

Sorry but my understanding of engineering is that you have to be capable to do simulation of a system functions (like in Mathlab) to be able to confidently say that you are able to understand and control it.

We are decades away of doing simulation of biological cells. We still don't understand them completely.

originally posted by: neoholographic
This is just more evidence that we live in a computer simulation that can be hacked just like anything else that uses computer programming. I think the universe itself can be programmed and hacked into and you could change the laws of physics. This is because the universe is information at a fundamental level. Like MIT Professor Seth Lloyd said, the universe doesn't act like a quantum computer, the universe is a quantum computer or a simulation being ran on a quantum computer.

Scientists at MIT have proven they can ‘hack’ living cells and programme them to carry out new tasks.

In the same way that computer language tells a machine how to operate, researchers have shown it is possible to write DNA ‘code’ and insert it into bacteria to alter how they function.

They hope that one day cells could be programmed so they could release cancer drugs on encountering a tumour, or allow plants to fight back with insecticide when a pest comes near.

“It is literally a programming language for bacteria,” said Christopher Voigt, an MIT professor of biological engineering.

“You use a text-based language, just like you’re programming a computer. Then you take that text and you compile it and it turns it into a DNA sequence that you put into the cell, and the circuit runs inside the cell.”

“You could be a student in high school and go onto the Web-based server and type out the program you want, and it spits back the DNA sequence.

“Unit now it would take years to build these types of circuits. Now you just hit the button and immediately get a DNA sequence to test.”

The language is based on Verilog, which is commonly used to program computer chips.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

You combine this with Crispr, which gives you the simply edit genes and the skies the limit. You can program an entire new species. This will be a boon for healthcare though because like the article said, you could program cells to fight cancer and other diseases and we will be able to edit these things out all together.

Isn't it cool enough that scientists are able to manipulate biology at a genetic level? Why do u gotta misrepresent what the article says, i mean u quoted it even. Lol its like hi here's a bunch of bs I really want to believe. Here's a cool article that doesnt substantiate any of the aforementioned claims... Lollololol slashwrists.

a reply to: neoholographic

Consciousness is digital and fundamental. It is the processor. We live in a subset reality of a larger reality. DNA can be hacked but I don't think the laws that govern this simulation we live in can be. It isn't allowed by the superset or larger consciousness system. Digital is a word we made up. I like to think of it as technology and computers are simply mirroring the reality that you're experiencing here. It's a natural evolution to evolve into technology. Consciousness is primary and pre existing to all that is.