Marc D. Riedel Associate Professor, ECE University of Minnesota EE 5393: Circuits, Computation and Biology OR AND AND 1 x 2 x 3 x 1 f 2 f 3 f
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Marc D. RiedelAssociate Professor, ECE University of Minnesota
EE 5393: Circuits, Computation and BiologyEE 5393: Circuits, Computation and Biology
ORAND AND
1x 2x 3x
1f 2f 3f
Instructor
Prof. Marc Riedeltel.: (612) 625-6086email: [email protected] office: EE/CSi 4-167
office hours: Th. 1:00–3:00pm
Teaching Assistants
Joshua Kristemail: [email protected]: Keller Hall 4-136
office hours: after every graded homework is returned
EE5393: Circuits, Computation, and Biology
• Lecture: Wed. & Friday, 2:30–3:45pmLocation: Keller Hall 3-230
• Prereqs: none • Textbooks: none• Website: http://tinyurl.com/ee5393
Grading
• 20% Quizzes:11 quizzes
(best 10 of 11 scores)
• 80% Homeworks:5 homeworks
(best 4 of 5 scores)
“A person's mental activities are entirely due to the behavior of nerve cells, glial cells, and the atoms, ions, and molecules that make them up and influence them.”
– Francis Crick, 1982
Astonishing Hypothesis
“That the astonishing hypothesis is astonishing.”
– Christophe Koch, 1995
The Astonishing Part:
Domains of Expertise
• Vision• Language• Abstract Reasoning• Farming
Human
Circuit
• Number Crunching
• Mining Data• Iterative
Calculations
Circuits & Computers as a Window into our Linguistic Brains
CircuitBrainConceives of circuits and
computation by “applying” language.
Lousy at all the tasks that the brain that
designed it is good at (including language).
?
Language as a Window into the way the Brain Works
Steven Pinker, Harvard
“Minnesota Farmer”
• Most of the cells in his body are not his own!
• Most of the cells in his body are not even human!
• Most of the DNA in his body is alien!
Who is this guy?
“Minnesota Farmer”
• 100 trillion bacterial cells of at least 500 different types inhabit his body.
Who is this guy?
He’s a human-bacteria hybrid:
vs.
• only 1 trillion human cells of 210 different types.
[like all of us]
“Minnesota Farmer”
Who is this guy?What’s in his gut?
• 100 trillion bacterial cells of at least 500 different types inhabit his body.
He’s a human-bacteria hybrid:
vs.
• only 1 trillion human cells of 210 different types.
[like all of us]
About 3 pounds of bacteria!
What’s in his gut?“E. coli, a self-replicating object only a thousandth of a millimeter in size, can swim 35 diameters a second, taste simple chemicals in its environment, and decide whether life is getting better or worse.”
– Howard C. Berg
flagellum
Bacterial Motor
Bacterial Motor
Electron Microscopic Image
“Stimulus, response! Stimulus response! Don’t you ever think!”
We should put these critters to
work…
Artificial Life
US Patent 20070122826 (pending):“The present invention relates to a minimal set of protein-coding genes which provides the information required for replication of a free-living organism in a rich bacterial culture medium.” – J. Craig Venter Institute
Going from reading genetic codes to writing them.
Artificial Life
Going from reading genetic codes to writing them.
Moderator: “Some people have accused you of playing God.”
J. Craig Venter:“Oh no, we’re not playing.
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