Indeed, Luca Cardelli, who also works for Microsoft Research, likens biological cells to computers.

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This is a technique that is usually employed to make detailed images of the insides of biological cells.

ECONOMIST: The Archimedes palimpsest

Allylix gets around this by engineering the genes for new biological pathways into yeast cells.

ECONOMIST: Inhuman genomes

Both these experiments were done in mice but no one doubted that the same kind of biological malleability was also achievable in human cells.

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"We aren't sure why activity primes your body for sleep so well, but it's likely a combination of factors, including lowering your core body temperature, increasing the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin and supporting a biological need to restore energy levels and repair cells and tissues when you sleep, " Cardinal says.

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Much of the research into ageing aims to get a better understanding of the biological processes which trigger the steady deterioration in the cells that make up our bodies.

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The technique used by Green and Hollister is part of a burgeoning field called regenerative medicine, which involves engineering therapies -- using things like stem cells, or "body parts" constructed out of biological material -- to harness the body's ability to heal itself.

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The dog-sized bot, only 73 pounds (33 kilograms), will look for direct evidence of existing life, whether combing the Martian atmosphere for methane, a possible biological byproduct, or checking rocks for a form of carbon favored by cells.

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In 2002 MIT professors started a not-for-profit called BioBricks that has collected 2, 000 biological components, including gene sequences that sense light, produce light, send messages between cells and switch cell functions on and off.

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While the detection of viruses is distributed over the Internet, for example, just as the cells of the immune system are spread throughout the body, there is no biological equivalent of the central analysis centre.

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In cells, enzymes are the basis of the natural circuits that switch genes on and off, maintain biological rhythms and produce molecular answers in response to environmental stimuli.

ECONOMIST: DNA computing

And in order to have any biological activity, if the gene fragment is somehow turned into a protein it would have to get into our own cells, and it does not have the capability to do that.

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