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Logic of Signaling

Why Synbio computing is where we ultimately want to more and more progress towards especially once the basic infrastructure is updated with technology like QC.


Cells are often likened to computers, running an operating system that receives signals, processes their input, and responds, according to programming, with cellular output. Yet untangling computer-like pathways in cells is anything but simple, say Denise Montell, professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Aviv Regev, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Broad Institute. However, both are eager to try and will outline their latest efforts at the “Logic of Signaling” symposium at the 2016 ASCB Annual Meeting.

“My lab is understanding how cells maintain and build normal tissues. We’re studying cellular behaviors that underlie normal behavior and tumor metastasis, a great unsolved question in cancer,” Montell said. Her lab recently discovered that cells can bounce back from the brink of apoptotic cell death. “This wasn’t known before so now we’re looking at how cells do it, when do they do it, under what circumstances, and what does it mean,” Montell said.

To track these near-death experiences in cells the Montell lab generated a genetically coded sensor in Drosophila. The researchers expected the mechanism to be a stress response, but they found that it was normal during development. “It makes sense retrospectively,” Montell explained, pointing to neuronal development as an example. “You produce way more neurons that you need, and the neurons compete for trophic factors. If a group of cells are competing for trophic factors, then one cell starts to die, but if it gets more trophic factor, it could bounce back.”

Conroy’s quantum warning: be ready

More folks warning others that you better be planning for a QC transformation as it is coming and is going to be probably the largest scale transformation the we have seen in the history of technology.


Former communications minister, Stephen Conroy has warned that Australian government technology decision makers need to start preparing for the development of quantum computing.

The former senator made the warning during a panel session at the Australian Computer Society’s Reimagination conference late last week. While still in its nascent development stages, the former minister for broadband communications and the digital economy said that it could have major national security implications.

“There’s one other issue that I wanted to put out there that’s coming as a disruptor and that’s quantum computing and how that’s going to affect things like national security and industrial competitiveness,” Mr Conroy said.

17 for ‘17: Microsoft researchers on what to expect in 2017 and 2027

This week we are celebrating Computer Science Education Week around the globe.

In this “age of acceleration,” in which advances in technology and the globalization of business are transforming entire industries and society itself, it’s more critical than ever for everyone to be digitally literate, especially our kids.

This is particularly true for women and girls who, while representing roughly 50 percent of the world’s population, account for less than 20 percent of computer science graduates in 34 OECD countries, according to this report.

ARL insight into synthetic biology and advanced 3D printing materials

The US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) are at an advanced stage of with their synthetic biology research. The work could see bacteria being used to send signals and sense in a way similar to computers, the advantage being that it could potentially provide a more intuitive sensory experience to a piece of tech, and bypass some of the pitfalls unique to electrical structures. The research also has application for new 3D printing materials.