" ... there is no question that the process of translation from the 4-symbol
nucleic acid code to the 20-symbol protein alphabet is a
computational operation at the molecular level (John Hopfield).
... This example of biological symbol-conversion serves to provide
Hopfield's "existence theorem" for molecular-scale computing -
a demonstration that in principle it can be done. "
- extracted from Garwin & Ball, 1992, Science at the atomic scale (review
of Nature's recent conference on nanotechnology), Nature 355:761-766.
Does anybody know of references to this "existence theorem" ?
I would also be happy to get pointers to works on the possibility
of *universal* computation in *real* living systems.
Thank you very much,
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Vincent Bauchau, PhD e-mail: vincent at buclln11.bitnet
// UCL / BIOM bauchau at biom.ucl.ac.be
// Croix du Sud 2 bte 16 Phone : (int) 32 10 47 3841
// B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (int) 32 10 47 3681
// Belgium FAX : (int) 32 10 47 3697
// The past is solid, future is liquid (J-L Aubert)