Sierpinski Triangles and crystal growth...

"Caltech Computer Scientists Embed Computation in a DNA Crystal to Create Microscopic Patterns"
Caltech (12/06/04)

"California Institute of Technology professor Erik Winfree has for the first time experimentally demonstrated his theory that any algorithm can be embedded in the growth of a crystal with the creation of a DNA crystal that computes as it grows, building a microscopic pattern of fractal Sierpinski triangles as the computation unfolds. Winfree, an assistant professor of computation and neural systems and computer science, and colleagues write in the December issue of Public Library of Science Biology that DNA "tiles" consisting of just 150 base pairs each can be programmed to spontaneously configure themselves into Sierpinski triangle-bearing crystals. The crystal computes using a well-established algorithm that starts with a sequence of 0s and 1s and redraws the sequence repeatedly, filling up consecutive rows on a piece of paper, performing binary addition on adjacent digits each time until a Sierpinski triangle composed of 1s and 0s emerges. The Caltech researchers represented written rows of binary 1s and 0s as rows of DNA tiles in the crystal, and addition was mimicked by designing each tile's loose or "sticky" ends to guarantee that whenever a free tile stuck to tiles already in the crystal, it represented the sum of the tiles it was glued to. Paul W.K. Rothemund, a Caltech senior research fellow in computer science and computation and neural systems, notes that scientists in the field of algorithmic self-assembly have "proposed a series of ever more complicated computations and patterns for these crystals, but until now it was unclear that even the most basic of computations and patterns could be achieved experimentally." The crystals' application to nanotechnology may hinge on whether the patterns can be converted into electronic devices and circuits."

For full article see website: http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12624.html

This is so cool, this basically brings all my favorite concepts together. For the people whom do not know, my favorite research areas -- going through school were of course computer science and theory, dynamical systems especially Sierpinski's Triangle (I was once a math major), and neural systems (my thesis dealt with some of this).