Biocomputers

This book represents an up-to-date view of current interest in Japan in biocomputing. This branch of computing encompasses a switch in components, from silicon-based components to those which contain organic molecules. The book discusses the future of computing using silicon components and the technological capacities and the humanistic applications of biocomputing that may be possible once new carbon-based technologies are more fully developed. The book also contends that biocomputing is inherently linked to the technology of producing "artificial life". It suggests that the deeper understanding of cellular mechanisms which will allow the exploitation of the molecules of life in biocomputers, will inevitably be used to manipulate life forms to a far greater extent than is now possible in biotechnology. This kind of "artificial intelligence" holds much greater potential for exploring and possibly altering the evolution of biological forms than biocomputers themselves.