First Hot-Ice Computer Created 120
KentuckyFC writes "Sodium acetate is the stuff inside chemical handwarmers that emits heat when it crystalizes after you press that little metal widget. That's why it is known as hot ice. Now a computer scientist in the UK has created a computer made entirely out of hot ice. The device processes information by exploiting the movement and interaction of wavefronts of crystallisation as they move through the material. The data input is in the form of metal wires that trigger crystal nucleation. The output works by reading off the direction of the moving wavefronts and the edges of the resulting crystals. The researcher has created AND and OR gates and solved a few problems such as finding the shortest path through mazes. There are even a few videos of the computer in action. The resulting computer is far from perfect, however. The data readout sometimes gives no solution and at other times gives circular results, the hot ice equivalent of a BSOD."
Re:New information processing methods (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, there's the implied "as we know it".
For all we know, life could exist in a vaccuum, inside stars, as electricity, &etc. However, there's no evidence one way or another.
What we do know is that of the forms of life we have found on our planet, they all require water. This will help us narrow down the places we want to look for life. We have a better chance at finding life if we focus on life forms that we'd have a remote chance of recognizing.
You need a NAND or a NOR gate to make a computer (Score:5, Insightful)
You need to be able to make NAND or NOR gates to make a computer, so until they also produce a NOT gate, this won't be a full computer.
Re:New information processing methods (Score:5, Insightful)
And your qualificatione for shaking your head are what?
Too many hours spent watching Star Trek and/or having an overactive imagination don't count.
Re:Plasmodium mould (Score:4, Insightful)
Not much more expensive - it might even be cheaper. All you're seeing is a supersaturated liquid crystallize. If you are counting medium and research time, it's probably cheaper than preparing a nutrient bed and watching mold grow. Keep in mind biocontainment and disposal. For this one, add some water and some energy, and you can just repeat this again and again.
Hell, it's probably easier to make a supersaturated solution than a proper mixture of mold spores and nutrients! For the solution, all you need is a starter crystal. The environment doesn't really matter.
It's called critical thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
And your qualificatione for shaking your head are what?
Presumably, having a mind capable of critical thought. Something you would be advised to learn. You are engaging in both the classic logical fallacy of "Appeal to Authority" (described here [nizkor.org]) and a tired ad homonem attack (you imply the grandparent poster watches star trek, which you implicitly indicate makes any thought they have on the subject meaningless. Both assumptions are themselves meaningless and irreleveant in the context of this discussion, but serve for you to classify the grandparent poster as a member of a group you view inherently as inferior to your rather arrogant self, which you then use as grounds to denigrate and dismiss their argument out of hand, without a shred of supporting logic to justify your stance).
The fact of the matter is that no one, inside of NASA or out, is an "authority" on extra-terrestrial life. No one has ever, as far as we know, detected, much less observed extra-terrestrial life. Everything we know, or think we know, is based purely on supposition and guesswork. In the case of NASA (and the view your post suggests you hold), the supposition that life elsewhere in the universe must (or is even likely to) mimic life on Earth.
Assuming extra-terrestrial life will be like Earth-based life is no more defensible, rational, or likely to be correct than assuming extra-terrestrial life will be nothing like Earth-based life. Assuming water must be intrinsic to life everywhere because we've observed it on one tiny, insignificant planet orbiting an unremarkable star in the outskirts of an equally unremarkable galaxy amounts to drawing statistical conclusions from a sample base with N=1, which is no better, or more intellectually rigorous, than just making random shit up.
The grandparent is right to shake his or her head. Any critically-thinking person would be inclined to do the same when confronted with such broad assumptions about something no one knows anything about, built upon such flimsy evidence.
All life in the universe may require water. Or not. Flip a coin. Based on the data we currently have, you are as likely to be right as any self-appointed "expert" in exobiology.
(Hell, water-based life might be the exception, not the rule. Just because it's us doesn't make it average or representative of the rest of the cosmos. Until we actually find some extra-terrestrial life, we can't even begin to guess the truth on this one way or another).
Re:It's called critical thinking (Score:2, Insightful)