Can DNA built structures evidence intelligence?

_{David L. Hagen

September 9, 2013

Biomimicry, Design inference, Genomics, Intelligent Design, specified complexity}

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See: DNA Creates Glue That Builds by Itself Lisa Graziano on September 9, 2013.

At Harvard University they are not playing with Legos and building grand structures. Scientists are using DNA cells to make glue smart enough to build architecture smaller than the eye can see without the aid of human intervention. Researchers have recently come up with the idea to glue together tiny bricks of material that are smaller than a grain of salt by using DNA to self-direct the architectural construction. The DNA glue, or smart glue makes the tiny water-filled, jelled bricks stick specifically to each other. . . .
What is being created from the DNA glue is a programmable, sophisticated architect, . . . This discovery will allow the programmable glue to create items such as lenses, microchips as well as surgical glue to reattached human tissue. . . .When the scientists added DNA to the brick glue, the glue immediately knew to attach itself to specific components and not randomly glob a top of one another. What the researchers’ created is the phenomenal ability for human tissues to reconstruct specifically, not randomly.

Three-Dimensional Structures Self-Assembled from DNA Bricks, Yonggang Ke, Luvena L. Ong, William M. Shih, Peng Yin, Science 30 November 2012: Vol. 338 no. 6111 pp. 1177-1183 DOI: 10.1126/science.1227268

C. Lin, R. Jungmann, A.M. Leifer, C. Li, D. Levner, G.M. Church, W. Shih, P. Yin
Sub-micrometer geometrically encoded fluorescent barcodes self-assembled from DNA, Nature Chemistry 4, 832-839 (2012).

Question: Can these DNA structures be quantitatively distinguished from natural law or stochastic causes?
If so, can other systems involving DNA be similarly distinguished? Why or why not?

Can these “DNA bricks” be specified with sufficiently to constitute Complex Specified Information (CSI)?

Comments

http://www.reasons.org/articles/artificial-dna-actual-artificial-dna-actual-designdesignDionisio_{July 18, 2014
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Fazale 'Fuz' Rana - Unveiled Masterpiece Of The Cell - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvj7paO8ojQbornagain77_{September 10, 2013
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@bornagain77 I sent you an email. Sorry to use this means for communication...John Witton_{September 10, 2013
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Programmable glue made of DNA directs tiny gel bricks to self-assemble - Sept. 9, 2013 Excerpt: "By using DNA glue to guide gel bricks to self-assemble, we're creating sophisticated programmable architecture," says Peng Yin, Ph.D., a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute ,,, This novel self-assembly method worked for gel cubes as small as a tiny piece of silt (30 microns diameter) to as large as a grain of sand (1 millimeter diameter), underscoring the method's versatility. The programmable DNA glue could also be used with other materials to create a variety of small, self-assembling devices, including lenses and reconfigurable microchips as well as surgical glue that could knit together only the desired tissues, said Ali Khademhosseini, Ph.D., an Associate Faculty member at the Wyss Institute who is the other senior coauthor of the study. "It could work for anything where you'd want a programmable glue to induce assembly of higher-order structures, with great control over their final architecture—and that's very exciting," http://phys.org/news/2013-09-programmable-dna-tiny-gel-bricks.htmlbornagain77_{September 10, 2013
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I find it interesting that among the very first structures that the Wyss Institute built out of DNA molecules, as they were learning how to manipulate the short DNA strands, were numbers and alphabet letters, i.e. information!
Building nano structures with DNA - Wyss Institute - video https://vimeo.com/68254051
They have already built a 'nanobot' as well:
(Man-Made) DNA nanorobot – video https://vimeo.com/36880067
At the two minute mark of the following video, you can see a nano-car that was built by Dr. James Tour's team:
Science & Faith — Dr. James Tour – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdU5ojTpyzg
Also of note, Dr. James Tour, who, IMHO at the present time, builds the most sophisticated man-made molecular machines in the world, will buy lunch for anyone who can explain to him exactly how Darwinian evolution works:
Top Ten Most Cited Chemist in the World Knows That Evolution Doesn’t Work – James Tour, Phd. – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCyAOCesHv0 “I build molecules for a living, I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God." James Tour – one of the leading nano-tech engineers in the world - Strobel, Lee (2000), The Case For Faith, p. 111
Also of note, the Wyss Institute was also behind a very stunning breakthrough not too long ago:
Information Storage in DNA by Wyss Institute - video https://vimeo.com/47615970 Quote from preceding video: "The theoretical (information) density of DNA is you could store the total world information, which is 1.8 zetabytes, at least in 2011, in about 4 grams of DNA." Sriram Kosuri PhD. - Wyss Institute Demonstrating, Once Again, the Fantastic Information-Storage Capacity of DNA - January 29, 2013 Excerpt: Last year, researchers led by bioengineers Sriram Kosuri and George Church of Harvard Medical School (Wyss Institute) reported that they stored a copy of one of Church's books in DNA, among other things, at a density of about 700 terabits per gram, more than six orders of magnitude more dense than conventional data storage on a computer hard disk. Now, researchers led by molecular biologists Nick Goldman and Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in Hinxton, UK, report online today in Nature that they've improved the DNA encoding scheme to raise that storage density to a staggering 2.2 petabytes per gram, three times the previous effort.,,, This is truly a profound achievement of human intelligent design. Why wouldn't the same be true of natural DNA? ,,, There's far more information in our DNA than the UK team embedded in theirs -- layers and layers of coding that regulate gene expression and respond interactively to signals in a vast network of complex feedback loops. It's a whole system of information.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/01/how_do_you_peta068641.html Storing information in DNA - Test-tube data - Jan 26th 2013 Excerpt: Dr Goldman’s new scheme is significant in several ways. He and his team have managed to set a record (739.3 kilobytes) for the amount of unique information encoded. But it has been designed to do far more than that. It should, think the researchers, be easily capable of swallowing the roughly 3 zettabytes (a zettabyte is one billion trillion or 10^21 bytes) of digital data thought presently to exist in the world and still have room for plenty more. per - The Economist
Also of note, biological computers are a very real possibility:
Biological Computer: Stanford Researchers Discover Genetic Transistors That Turn Cells Into Computers - March 29, 2013 (w/video) Excerpt: This isn't to say that highly functional biological computers will arrive in short order, but we should certainly begin to see simple biological sensors that measure and record changes in a cell’s environment. Stanford has contributed the...gate design to the public domain, which should allow other research institutes, such as Harvard's Wyss Institute, to also begin work on the first biological computer. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/29/biological-computer_n_2981753.html
The potential for DNA based computers is very impressive:
DNA Computer Excerpt: DNA computers will work through the use of DNA-based logic gates. These logic gates are very much similar to what is used in our computers today with the only difference being the composition of the input and output signals.,,, With the use of DNA logic gates, a DNA computer the size of a teardrop will be more powerful than today’s most powerful supercomputer. A DNA chip less than the size of a dime will have the capacity to perform 10 trillion parallel calculations at one time as well as hold ten terabytes of data. The capacity to perform parallel calculations, much more trillions of parallel calculations, is something silicon-based computers are not able to do. As such, a complex mathematical problem that could take silicon-based computers thousands of years to solve can be done by DNA computers in hours. http://www.tech-faq.com/dna-computer.html
Verse and Music:
Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. Switchfoot - Dare You To Move http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOTcr9wKC-o
bornagain77_{September 10, 2013
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