The seesaw magic book: the computational power of DNA molecules

A whimsical explanation of recent research developing molecular systems that perform information processing tasks. Yes, it's real. No, there's no magic.

Reference: "Scaling Up Digital Circuit Computation with DNA Strand Displacement Cascades," Lulu Qian and Erik Winfree, Science, June 3, 2011

Animation and Narration: Lulu Qian
Music: Donde Voy, on The Daydream - A Sleeping Forest
Stock images from iStockphoto

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• seesaw
• DNA
• digital
• circuit
• computation

[luluqian]

Sorry about the music being too loud. I've readjusted the music and the voice volume, please find the new version in video responses.

[Lona7774]

Hi Lulu. I've only just read of your work. Truly amazing. Thank you for taking the time out to make this video so that the rest of us can see what you've learnt and discovered. I wish you nothing but the very best and hope that your future in science continues to grow brighter and even more exciting!

Just as a side note, for the life of me, I can't understand why people would care about the music in the video being too loud or the "basic" nature of your explanations. So trivial.

Regards..

[amishcyborg]

Nicely produced, but much too slow for someone looking for information.  2 minutes in and still explaining DNA basics too basic for anybody who would be interested in this video. Stopping now.

[892237020]

Awesome:-) science and romance^^

[woutx]

Beautiful video, and congratulations on the paper!

[futureprogress]

Computation via DNA is awesome, good work! This video however is lacking.

[jmatx]

Music too loud, pace too slow. Can't watch it.

[sanjeev24joshi]

Music is really loud and it drowns out the commentary. Will somebody fix it?

[nintendomaniac64]

Music is a bit loud... Perhaps some waveform gain analysis and adjustment should have been done to the music and/or voice track before combining them?