Real Computers Don't 'Squish'
By Jeffrey R. Harrow, TechWeb
contributor
(06/28/99; 9:00 a.m. ET) - OPINION
Computers are typically made from silicon, or occasionally from some
other specialized material, but whatever their base, today's computers are made out of
good, old fashioned, solid-state components that come out of a nice, clean chip foundry.
Real computers don't "squish." Real computers don't have to be fed (except with
electrons) -- right?
Well, some scientists in Atlanta have now demonstrated a different, very
organic variation on our nice "normal" computers -- a computer built out of
leech neurons.
OK, it's not quite equal to a good Pentium, but when a group of these
neurons is stimulated in a particular way, they actually do math. Correctly.
Brought to our attention by U.K. RCFoC reader Donovan Taylor and others,
the leech neurons apparently taught themselves to solve the problem of adding two numbers.
According to the June 2
BBC News, when individual neurons are stimulated in a way to represent numbers, other
linked neurons then provide the sum. And this is different from the computers we're used
to in more ways than just being based on carbon instead of silicon.
"The device the team has built can 'think for itself' because the
leech neurons are able to form their own connections from one to another," says
Taylor. "Normal silicon computers only make the connections they are told to by the
programmer." He adds, "The line graph readouts showed the neurones 'holding' the
numbers 2 and 3, and when they linked [added] the numbers, the readout showed real
activity. You had to take the research team's word that the result was a 5, but there was
a reaction to the numeric stimuli."
Well, that's certainly interesting if we take the results of this very
early "wetware" work at face value, but it's hardly significant -- is it? I
mean, what good is a petri dish that can add 3 and 2?
Of course, I do remember people saying exactly those things about the
first digital computers that only added 1 and 1.
