A DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes

Re:A DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes by livelielife on Thursday March 30, 2023 @05:55PM (#35379311)

is dna hardware? software?

it's both! it's neither! oh, and it's also the runtime!

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Re:A DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes by borissk on Thursday March 30, 2023 @09:32PM (#35381237)

The DNA code is software, the hardware and the runtime are RNA and proteins.

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Re:A DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes by jhbadger on Friday March 31, 2023 @08:23AM (#35385999)

But those are encoded by the DNA as well. That isn't how software works (which runs on hardware that exists independently of it) I suppose you could argue that it is similar to a FPGA, where entire CPUs can be created in software, but even there there is still underlying hardware that can't be modified by software.

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Re:A DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes by TeMPOraL on Sunday April 02, 2023 @04:48AM (#35408496)

DNA exists physically, and the way the software "runs" is not just dependent on the abstract genetic code, but also the particular way it gets folded in 3D space. In this sense, DNA is both software and hardware. Arguably a lot of things at the cellular level defy the distinction between code, data, hardware and runtime.

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Re:A DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes by ramraj07 on Friday March 31, 2023 @02:30AM (#35383433)

It’s basically an ASIC.

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Re:A DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes by livelielife on Friday March 31, 2023 @06:26AM (#35384905)

but the specification is an input

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Re:A DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes by mcv on Friday March 31, 2023 @03:48AM (#35383963)

Evolution isn't very good at separating its concerns.

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Re:A DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes by promptdaddy on Friday March 31, 2023 @10:46AM (#35387924)

In which context?

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