Check out the following link by SciAm for Synthetic Life.

I seriously think that there is some kind of philosophy behind biological life. It is not created or infused by someone, it arises from the biological system itself. Take an example of identity of a single cellular organism bacteria. What is the point of its life, if it just has to divide and sacrifice itself for its two daughter cells. The original bacteria is no longer there, all there is two cells.

Well, going off the point, this is my philosophy about evolution:

I see evolution as a constant fight between two forces:

1. First one trying to preserve the genes of *best fit* organism so as to continue the existance of life.

2. Second one trying to diversify the genes of *best fit* organisms so that life doesn’t miss any organism which can be potentially more fit than currently *best fit* organism.

Here I call life as a collective of all living organisms.

So, evolution can be visualized as life trapped between two opposing forces.

Resources

1. Philosophy of Biology Blog
2. Wikipedia’s entry on Unsolved problems in biology

Everybody has heard about the word ‘intelligence’, but few have heard terms like ‘microbial intelligence’ or ‘bacterial intelligence’, Why? Simply because bacterium cannot be intelligent. They are just not intelligent. You might say that I must be crazy if I say that a bacterium is an intelligent entity. And, yes, you are correct.

A single bacterium is not at all intelligent. But a collection of bacterium can be regarded as intelligent. Researchers have found that bacteria use sophisticated communication methods to tackle the problems (of colony) collectively. For example, if there is lesser food available to the colony, the bacteria organize themselves in such a way so as to maximize nutrient availability. If this isn’t intelligence, then what is intelligence?

A Bacterial colony loosely mimics (or is similar to) a biological neural network. Just as a single neuron is no better than any other type of cell, a bacterial cell alone has no intelligence. Intelligence reside in the whole colony.

Bacteria can store, process, output and input information. In a sense, they are basic computers. And when a swarm of bacteria combines, intelligence arises in this computing machinery.

In above, I have been referring to bacteria alone. But I guess it refers to all microbes or possibly all life.

Resources

1. Wikipedia’s entry on Microbial Intelligence
2. Intelligent Bacteria?
3. Eshel Ben-Jacob’s Home Page

Once upon a time there was a branch known as chemistry. It was/is the study of substances obtained from the living organisms. It was a hit-and-trail approach for studying compounds. The field was restricted to mainly organic substances. But, then slowly and steadily the field of ‘Synthetic Chemistry’ developed. Once scientists understood how chemicals are made, they soon started developing their own chemicals. And then, it ushered a revolution in fields as diverse as medicine to food technology.

The same is happening in the area of Biology. We now are closer to understanding life than ever. We today know about DNA, Ribosomes, Genetic code, cell communication methods and many other intricate things. Yes, we are quite far away from understanding how the life really works but at least we have the knowledge sufficient to allow safe tinkering with the life itself.

This field which involves modifying life or even creating life from the scratch is known as Synthetic Biology. Its about making biology work for us in a predictable manner. By constructing new organisms we may even get to know how existing biology works.

Synthetic Biology will open unlimited opportunities. We can (theoretically as of now) program a single cell to grow into a whole tables, chairs, etc. Well, this is just another application of distant (or not too distant) future. But immediate future will see bacteria detecting land mines or fighting pathogens inside our bodies. We may also program cells to regrow our damaged body parts.

Synthetic biology is often compared to electronics engineering. In electronics we have a AND gate and a NOT gate. Combine both and we get a NAND gate. Analogous to this, Synthetic Biology aims to make organisms or parts of organisms as components which can be combined together and achieve desired results without knowing internal mechanisms of these components.

The future is Synthetic Biology. I can clearly see it revolutionizing our world in next 5-10 years. We may then wonder how we lived *without* Synthetic Biology as we know wonder about the world without electronics.

Resources

1. Wikipedia’s entry on Synthetic Biology
2. Wired, Life Reinvented
3. SyntheticBiology.org
4. Squidoo Lenses: Synthetic Biology

Many of the links for BioHacking available at: http://del.icio.us/tag/biohacking

Ques: What is BioHacking?
Ans: Well, BioHacking is the art of hacking the biology. Simple, isn’t it? See, nature has mastered some of the best ways of doing things. On a cellular level, you can observe a hell lot of complicated but efficient logistics. Everything is so decentralized yet agreeable. And nature has also produced organisms which can metabolize waste products, detect nuclear wastes and innumerable yet to be discovered wonders.

This is wonderful but unfortunately we havent been able to tap this ability for our benefit. You may say there is Genetic engineering and Biotechnology. Yes, they are there but they are just the beginning. I am talking about grander things such as bacteria playing chess, farms of algae providing energy for inter-planetary journey, microbial intelligence replacing AI, E. coli on seek-and-destroy cancer missions in our body, merger of biotechnology, information technology and nanotechnology, and many other futuristic bio-things.

All these things are grand yet achievable. And the art/science (it doesn’t make a difference yet) of achieving them is BioHacking. It isn’t a single science, but an amalgation of all the futuristic things which can hack the usual way of nature for our and its own benefit.

I intend to post a lot of links, articles, views and some of my own projects on this blog.

Welcome to BioHacking.

Resources

1. Wikipedia article on Biohacking
2. Nanotechnology without Genies
3. Biosingularity
4. Delicious Tag of Biohacking

I really liked the word “engineering-minded biologists”

Check out the link by the way:

Click Here to view article

Check it out:

http://futurefeeder.com/index.php/archives/2005/11/10/bio-paper-for-printing-organs/

People are doing great things these days. Printing organs from a printer….

Why does a cell exist?

See, cell after its division ceases to exist for itself. The two daughter cells are not the cell itself. So what benefit does the division of cells exist.

This is more on a philosophical note than the biological one. Biologically, self-replication is inevitable. But, philosophically, self-replication requires the sacrifice of the parent cell for the sake of proliferation. Why would a cell sacrifice itself just for the sake of its daughter cells? Is this a form of love?

Where does the identity of a cell reside (if it is having one)? I think the cells exist for the sake of whole life. Whole of the life in the universe can be compared to a multicellular organism, where cells replicate (dying themselves) for the sake of existence of life as a whole.

But, on a more general note what purpose does reproduction of cells or even us hold?

I was glancing on a set of two books titled Types of Philosophies (Part I an II), when this struck to me.

How can be there more than one philosophy in the world?

See, there is only one truth in the world. If someone has some kinda philosophy of his own which is based on the truth he observes. If the truth is one, then everyone should observe it irrespective of himself. See, Truth is objective and one. Hence, the conclusions based on truth(philosophy) must be one.

Only one type of philosophy is right… All others are false?

But, the book said types of philosophies are: idealism, realism, mysticisms, etc…. How can more than one type of philosophy co-exist?

Any comments?