Recent Developments in Building Life - Atom by Atom

Recent developments in Life-Building - can lead to happy fixes for many human (or, any life form) diseases/deficiencies, or towards dangerous mistakes.

Below are some claims in that direction:

Genome Compiler claims to build a Compiler to take care of Grammar (Syntax and Semantics) of stitching genes
(http://www.genomecompiler.com/)
(http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants-natural-lighting-with-no-electricit)
"...my lab is using Genome Compiler to design and debug DNA in order to build radically new genomes with useful properities like resistance to all viruses and enabling new amino acids..."


Cambrian Genomics claims to 3D print a genome (http://cambriangenomics.com/)
Is this at molecular level?


IBM claims capability to move and assemble individual molecules (can they stitch Atoms to make Molecules?)
A Boy And His Atom: The World's Smallest Movie (http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/madewithatoms.shtml)

Here all molecules are same "carbon monoxide"... there may be some complexities to overcome to assemble more complex molecules to make DNA... our DNA formed with complex molecules Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, Thymine -- each molecule composed of 13-16 atoms of different combinations of elements Hydrogen, Corbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen.

On other thoughts, when we have capability, why not try with different elements and less complex molecules?

Sathyam Shivam Sundaram

This world is Real and Exists (Sathyam), is made with Pure/Energy forms (Shivam), can show up as Shapes of Beauty (Sundaram).

What Helps Human Survival ? Biology? Science? Sociology? Phylosophy?

What helps human survival for another 100 or 1000 or 10,000 or a Million or more years?

1. First, take help of Biology. Just reproduce in vast numbers ;)

2. And, with help of Science and Technology, increase chances of survival against epidemics, and even possibly against natural catastrophes. And, of course, de-risk from 1-planet, i.e., expand our civilization to nearby or faraway planets/stars.

3. Meanwhile, there is danger of self-destruction. Here, Sociology may help, to create love, sharing, patience, discipline, order etc. This also means, to keep limits on reproduction rates :)

4. After all, why this Survival? What are we Waiting for? A state of boredom will creep in, after some evolution and sophistication from Biology, Science/Technology, Sociology. May be Philosophy helps here.

Looks like these are interlinked, and needs coordination and hand-in-hand growth. Too much of Biology leads to problems in Sociology. Some directions of Philosophy may stagnate Science and Technology. Society may not be mature enough to absorb too fast growth in Science and Technology, which may increase chances of misuse, leading to self destruction.

Photo Synthesis - From Natural to Artificial

Recently, I had a chance to listen to keynote address "The Future of Energy" by Prof. Daniel Nocera, Chemistry prof at MIT... "has successfully used solar light to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Recently, they have realized artificial photosynthesis by the solar splitting of water under benign conditions. In doing so, the Nocera group can now provide solar energy/storage and clean water to the poor and those of the non-legacy world".

After the session, I asked him one question... something like this "The leaf of plant, which harvests Sun's energy... the evolution of leaf has settled at energy utilization efficiency at approx 3%... they ignore the rest of energy instead of utilizing it for their betterment... that means there is some other important need or convenience which took priority in plants' evolution... may be you are ignoring that convenience (which may be of interest to us) in the quest for achieving efficiency of 75% and beyond..."...
His answer was - yes... their important duty was to live... may be 2%-3% was enough... they didn't know they have to store sun's energy for utilization by humans :)

I had some other thoughts going on... (may be similar to millions of humans over thousands of years)... that photo-synthesis efficiency in leaves is 2%-3%... not same in all plants... not same in all regions... for example, in parts of earth where there is enough sunlight through out the year, like India, plants don't need to worry much... but, there are some places on earth where not much sunlight is available for months together... here, plants have to store more energy, to save for days/months where they don't get sunlight... meaning their efficiency has to be higher... now the point... it may be possible that the chemical composition of the leaves in these two areas is different ? if we know that, and artificially/genetically engineer leaves towards maximizing their storage efficiency, we can benefit? basically we create plants that harvest ~50% or more energy... basically they become the future fuels... energy industry shifts from factories to farms... wow!

In the same conference, in some other context, some one was saying "our airplanes don't fly by flapping wings like birds"... basically, meaning we don't necessarily need to make nature imitating machines to serve our needs... may be right.

May be, Prof. Nocera's method is the good forward step for human societies energy needs, in his terms, "the energy industry/economy will be decentralized".

Watson - A machine from IBM, playing Jeopardy!

Watson - A machine from IBM, playing Jeopardy!
http://www-943.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/

I wonder what implications this have to human society... IBM is planning to deploy this for Research and a Smarter Planet.

On Science-Fiction side, you can think more...
http://chandra-superman.blogspot.com/2009/06/when-robots-doubt-humans.html
Now, Waston is a step towards this ... Wow!

I remember Mr. Chitti (in Rajnikant's Robo movie) reading books in seconds... again, Watson is a step towards Chitti.

Who am I? continuation...

These thoughts are in continuation to my previous post "Who am I" in
http://chandra-superman.blogspot.com/2009/04/who-am-i.html

This may be the boundary between today's Science and olden days beliefs, myths and philosophies (if at all the below mentioned thoughts are true (I don't know!), may they become truth's accepted by Science someday in future?)

Let's say, the "I" in me is my soul ("Atma")... and, my current body is just an avatar... this body can be in the form of human or horse or elephant or mosquito or cockroach or fish or frog or bacteria etc.

When the body is not useful anymore (we call this death), will the Atma immediately find another body to get in? which body? does it select the body of human or horse or mosquito or bacteria or something else? will it select its body on this earth or some other planet of some other star or some other galaxy or other universe (another place in multiverse?)? will the Atma select itself or God will select?

By any chance, is this selection based on the deeds done by the bodies of this Atma's previous lifes? Is there some amount carry-over to next lifes? how many number of future lifes? is there some quantification like so much of good-deeds and so much of bad-deeds etc?

First of all, why should there be discrimination among these bodies? By definition, Atma not supposed to make any discrimination towards various life forms... for God, all are equal (is it so?)

Is there some time-gap between lifes? What is Atma doing in this time gap? Is this we call "Ghost" stage? Then, why are we afraid of ghosts?

Is the death of a body and the creation of next body for Atma pre-planned by its Atma or God? When, some accident (not planned by Atma or God!!) happen, the next body is not yet ready, and the Atma has to wait for some time (or the original end time)? Is this the ghost stage?

In my childhood stories, I read a lot about "Para-Kaya-Pravesam" - meaning, the Soul can enter another Body. Some learned people, leave their still good and alive body, and enter some dead-body for some time, and comeback to their original body. So, they can enter another body without the need to leave current body... without becoming ghosts.

I have one curious question? what happens all those souls in countless number of bodies on the earth, when some mass sudden-death (like asteroid stike, or some nuclear blast etc) happens? By definition, Atma can't be destroyed by fire or any other destructive form. So, only bodies are destroyed, and all those billions and billions of souls become ghosts? May be that, God will immediately create a huge bacteria colony temporarily for all these souls to occupy? Or, do they really need some body?

- that which is born, shall die - - that which dies, shall be born -
--- this is the endless cycle for souls ---
--- poor souls!!! they are caught in God's Game!!! ---

One more question (never ending questions!!) - How many Gods playing this Game? Is there only one God or many?

Ravan and Multicore and Cloud

We had some discussion over food today... thoughtful and funny...

Ravan and Multicore:
In Ramayana, Ravan had 10 heads... was there one head which is master-head and the remaining 9 slave-heads? or all heads are equal?
Does this has any similarity to multicore platforms?

Ravan and Cloud:
In movies and TV-serials, we see Ravan with 1 head normally. when the situation demands, his remaining heads show up. When Rama cut some of those heads, they comeback again.
Does this has any similarity to Cloud-computing? Heads come up on-demand... when they are down, new heads are born... sounds familiar? [one difference is he has 10 heads - that is max. no in-between capacity!]

Ravan and Reconfigurable-Processor (RP):
- Any thoughts?