Tiny, powerful computers based on DNA
It almost sounds too fantastic to be true, but a growing amount of research supports the idea that DNA, the basic building block of life, could also be the basis of a staggeringly powerful new generation of computers.
If it happens, the revolution someday might be traced to the night a decade ago when University of Southern California computer scientist Leonard Adleman lay in bed reading James Watson's textbook "Molecular Biology of the Gene."
"This is amazing stuff," he said to his wife, and then a foggy notion robbed him of his sleep: Human cells and computers process and store information in much the same way.
Computers store data in strings made up of the numbers 0 and 1. Living things store information with molecules represented the letters A,T,C and G.
