This is incredibly cool. The BBC is reporting on a project to construct (by 2010) a virtual plant. Modeled after Arabidopsis thaliana, a relative of cabbage, this computer simulation would contain a complete description of all genes, as well as the proteins involved, and their expression at any point in time. A sort of "wiring diagram" of a living plant. Dr. Chory of the Salk Institute said "We'd love, for instance, to see a four-dimensional view of a plant that covers all the details from when the seed germinates to when the next generation seeds fall off the mother plant. And we'd like to be able to stop the process at any phase in the plant's life-cycle and see which proteins are expressed and how they interact." If a simulation of a plant behaves exactly like a plant, is it one? In any case, cyberspace definitely needs a little greening.
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- jim 6-01-2000 8:37 pm