Nature group has released a set of review papers on the subject of Systems Biology. Luckily, they are available for free. So all you people can get a glimpse into the budding field of systems biology.

Click here to see the review papers.

Which one would you rate the best philosophy of life:

1. Stupidity + Selfishness + Good Health = Good Virtue

2. I love losing myself

3. Social irresponsibility is the greatest virtue

Well, I think all of them are equally mind blowing…

Researchers at a French institute have resurrected an extinct virus from the human genome. Yes, you read it right, they resurrected it from the human genome itself. The virus, dubbed phoenix, is from a class of viruses known as retroviruses which integrate their genome into the host. At a later time, they may get berserk and infect the host. But if they remain intergrated long enough, they get inactivated due to acquired mutations.

Check out this cool research here.

Microsoft has announced $500,000 funding for research on Computational Challenges in Synthetic Biology. It is a very exciting opportunity for synthetic biology researchers to give a boost to their research from the funding obtained.

Make sure you check the details of the announcement at their website.

iGEM competition this year took place at MIT with 37 teams from all over the world participating to make [i]cool[/i] biology projects. Take a look at the competition this year at: http://www.igem2006.com

This paper details various issues regarding IP in Synthetic Biology. I haven’t read it, but it seems interesting. It should serve as good pointer to budding Biohackers.

The Artificial Being Project has been updated. Check it out at: http://www.paraschopra.com/projects/ai-being/ai-being.pdf

I have lately realized that Artificial Intelligence can be best achieved if it is modeled on democracy. Democracy works in a decentralized manner and all the decisions it makes go through rigorous debate. The best of all, there is no single entity responsible for decision; hence no scope of blaming things to one entity.

The AB (simple single celled type) will be composed of several modules with different priorities/weights. Say, module ‘motion’, ‘hunger’, ‘vision’, etc. When vision sees a food it gives the analysis of trajectory to food. Then motion estimates the energy required to grab up the food and vision estimates amount of energy in the food. And hunger tells if the endeavor will be worthwhile.

Something like this:

Hunger says Yes
Motion says No, path too difficult
Vision says Yes, a tasty pizza ahead

They would decide among themselves about the final decision: if AB will spend energy to fetch food. Each modules vote their consent for a proposal made by module X. Then, taking into the votes and the weight age attached to voting modules, X decides if to go ahead with the proposal. In a nutshell, AB will work like a democracy. I guess our brains work like democracy too!

Therefore, an AB will consist of N number of modules each with a weightage for other modules. Therefore there will be N(N-1) weights for an AB.

Now, to get the ideal values of weightage we can put a lot of ABs in a common environment to compete for a limited resource such as energy. The best ones survive and reproduce; worst ones perish.

I have launched a beta (or perhaps alpha) version of Mangta. It is a web service which will let you search for songs, movies, ebooks, software, games and all other kinds of cool stuff using clever google tricks.

Take a look at it. Click to http://paraschopra.com/mangta/

Alejandro Barreto asked me a few of his philosophical questions. I am reproducing the relevant part of conversation below.

> 1. What is the basis of entire reality? And what does Godel’s Incompleteness
> Theorem got to do with this?

As far as I understand, Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem, in general, tells that there is some truth which cannot be proved or disproved…
Alejandro Barreto asked me a few of his philosophical questions. I am reproducing the relevant part of conversation below.

> 1. What is the basis of entire reality? And what does Godel’s Incompleteness
> Theorem got to do with this?

As far as I understand, Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem, in general, tells that there is some truth which cannot be proved or disproved. It isnt that one has any less intelligence to prove or disprove the truth, but it is the general property of the system.

If we apply this theorem to reality, I guess there are certain things which we might never understand. It is IMPOSSIBLE to know every truth.

But, maybe this is my naive interpertation of Godel’s theorem.

> 3. What are your views on the subject-object duality? Do you believe in
> solipsism (that the world exists only for me and everything is my
> imagination) or pure objective science (”I” am only a bunch of hyperactive
> biological units called cells)? Can we even know the foundation of reality?

The more I think about the ultimate reality, the lesser I understand it. I believe out brain was never evolved to understand things such as subject-object duality. It was evolved to make strategies for hunting animals for food. It was evolved to comprehend things in their macro sense. So it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to understand things in thier ultimate reality.

There is no way you can disprove or prove either of these: solipsism or pure objective science. How would you prove a person adhering to solipsism that pure objective science is true. Perhaps, to prove that
world exists without him, you will have to kill him. And by killing him, you can no longer prove (or show) him anything. Similarly, you can never prove a person adhering to pure objective science that solipsism is true.

I believe we can never know the ultimate truth or reality or whatever you might want to call it. We were not evolved for this. The ultimate reality will always remain elusive for, us, philosophers.