What can currently be said about the impact of probiotic bacteria on the microbial balance at the moment? “They go in at one end of the digestive tract and come out the other, and hopefully something good happens along the way” is probably not too harsh a statement.
— Gerald Tannock , Probiotics: A Critical Review

Archive for June, 2008

The Finite Nature of Computability

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

In Introduction to Metamathematics, S.C. Kleene begins his chapter on Turing machines with the following informal characterization [1]:

Suppose that a person is to compute the value of a function for a given set of arguments by following preassigned effective instructions. In performing the computation he will use a finite number of distinct symbols or tokens […]

Filed under: Critiques of Critiques, Turing Machines | 1 Comment »

NAS - Genetically Engineered Organisms, Wildlife, and Habitat: A Workshop Summary

Friday, June 6th, 2008

The National Academy of Sciences Press announced a (pre-publication) downloadable book entitled “Genetically Engineered Organisms, Wildlife, and Habitat: A Workshop Summary” [1]. Being the result of a workshop, the content is both brief and choppy; however, it provides an interesting summation of the state of the science of GEOs (genetically engineered organisms), particularly with respect […]

Filed under: Synthetic Biology | 1 Comment »

JTB Paper: Self-organization at the origin of life

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

A paper [1] by Athel Cornish-Bowden and María Luz Cárdenas discussing the Rosen (M,R)-system model is in the June 7, 2008 issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology. The abstract of this paper:

The concept of an (M,R) system with organizational invariance allows one to understand how a system may be able to maintain itself indefinitely […]

Filed under: (M,R)-System, Relational Biology | 1 Comment »