Dear FIS Colleagues,
Thanks to Zhao Chuan for the Computer Poem/Song. It is a soft way to
retake our discussions. These weeks there have been a couple of
important achievements in the bio-information field. On the one side,
the first 'complete' model of a prokaryotic cell ("A Whole-Cell
Computational Model Predicts Phenotype from Genotype", by Karr et al.,
Cell, 150, 389-401, 2012). On the other, there was the report of another
'complete' scheme, that of the C. elegans nervous system, now at the
level of individual synaptic contacts, which was able to explain the
mating behavior of the worm ("The Connectome of a Decision-Making Neural
Network", by Jarrell et al., Science, 337, 437-444, 2012). It contained
several references to the "information flow" through interneurons and
sensorimotor circuits, and a very curious definition of knowledge (as
"the set of activity weights in an adjacency matrix of a neural network,
upon which the network's input-output function in part depends...").
Both papers are very interesting, relatively consistent with each other,
and I think both represent symbolic milestones in the bio-information
field. The point on information flows left me thinking on the larger
perspective beyond single information items that we rarely focus on.
Actually the first Shannonian information metaphor was about "sources"
and "channels" --wasn't it? Particularly thinking on social information
matters, how many aspects of contemporary life relate to the maintenance
of the information flows intertwining and directing the economic flows.
No doubt that the "forces of communication" have definitely won the
upper hand upon the "forces of production ".
Somehow, Zhao Chuan's poem is but a celebration of the central role that
computers have come to play in the gigantic information flows of our time.
best wishes
--Pedro
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Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
[email protected]
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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