Computer made of DNA?!

Every day, people are working to make the next microprocessor that will be smaller and faster than whatever is on the market at the moment. If these manufacturers keep using the same materials, however, one day they won't be able to make these chips any smaller or faster. Eventually, they will need to switch to making these microprocessors with a new material. Luckily, a new kind of computer is in the works: a DNA computer. The microprocessors will have DNA instead of silicon to store information and complete operations. Although these DNA computers are a fairly new reality, they can already "perform 330 trillion operations per second, more than 100,000 times the speed of the fastest PC." Wow! 

The idea to use DNA in computers was introduced in 1994 when Leonard Adleman thought about how effective DNA is at storing information in our bodies, and how this efficiency can be translated to computers. He proved through experiments that DNA can also be used to solve complex mathematical problems. Because of all of the possible benefits of using DNA in computers, computer chip manufacturers have been working tirelessly to make Adleman's idea a reality. Some of these benefits include:

• unlike silicon chips, DNA biochips will be made cleanly, with no toxic materials
• DNA computers will be much smaller than silicon computers
• DNA computers can hold much more data
• "One pound of DNA has the capacity to store more information than all the electronic computers ever built;­ and the computing power of a teardrop-sized DNA computer, using the DNA logic gates, will be more powerful than the world's most powerful supercomputer."
• silicon computers perform operations linearly (one at a time), whereas DNA computers can perform operations parallel to each other, so complex problems can be solved in hours instead of months or even years!
• an endless supply of DNA, as long as there are cellular organisms on Earth
• DNA is a cheap resource (because of the endless supply)
• 

Although this technology most likely won't be available to common people any time soon (it will likely be used for national governments or huge corporations), it is still amazing to think about!

References:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dna-computer.htm

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0224_030224_DNAcomputer.html

http://www.calvin.edu/chimes/2014/11/12/dna-computer-chip-technology/

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