Wonder why we don’t crash like computers?
Posted on 12. May, 2010 by admin in Medicine, Science
The control network of bacterium E Coli, left, and the Linux operating system, right
Whether right or for wrong, the human brain is often compared to a computer, and vice-versa. They both receive data, process it, store it, and output new data. Unlike computers, however, the human brain doesn’t crash. Yes, people have nervous breakdowns, but that has more to do with psychological stress than with data management. Now, researchers from Yale University have figured out why our brains succeed where computers fail.
The research team compared the genome of E coli bacteria with the Linux operating system. Both of the control networks, it turns out, are arranged in hierarchies. In E coli, the molecular networks are arranged in a pyramid. A limited number of master regulatory genes sit at the top, controlling a wide range of specialized functions beneath them.
By contrast, Linux is more like an inverted pyramid – numerous routines are at the top, controlling a few generic functions at the bottom. This is because software engineers save time and money by building on existing routines, instead of starting systems from scratch. Such an approach makes the system vulnerable to breakdowns, however, as even simple changes to a generic routine can be very disruptive. To minimize problems, the generic components need to be continually fine-tuned by software designers.
The Yale scientists noted that in a living organism, generic components that need to be constantly updated would not be a good survival trait. Instead, over billions of years of evolution, the E coli bacteria has evolved many highly specialized modules. Together, these modules are ready to handle most eventualities, resulting in a much more robust network.
Uncle B
May 19th, 2010
Been using Linux -Ubuntu for a couple of years now! Guess what! It doesn’t crash! Microsoft products used to show me the dreaded “blue screen of death” signaling total losses of current data, regualarly – Since Ubuntu – no deaths!, No discouraging lock-ups! No over wound hard drive failures! No trips to the computer shops for detanglements! Just smooth running until the on-board battery failed – hardly Ubuntu’s falt at all! Corporatist power to control the American population is remarkable! The Ubuntu system id free, and Americans are still coerced into using Microsoft by strong arm, gangster style techniques in the market places of America – Not so in France – even the “Flicks” in France use linux systems in their cars over the Microsoft fiasco! Watch Chinas reject Microsoft once patent infringements are enforced there or now, Windows 7 costs no more thatn the price of a coy disk on the streets of Shanghai – and no real penaties for the copy, so Microsoft reigns! Most of Europe – Ubuntu now! They got wise! See free download sites for Ubuntu on the web – just Google it! P.S. Older computerws run much better on Ubuntu – very much faster! Try it You’ll like it!
Richard
May 23rd, 2010
I have to agree with Uncle B’s evaluation. The article’s evaluation is basically flawed. This is a peril when people with expertise in one area (biology) attempt to make an analogy dealing with another area in which they have no expertise (operating system design). The Linux operating system has a large number of controls — user controlled programs designed to perform a myriad of specialized functions under outside direction. It has a limited and shared number of underlying components to minimize duplication of effort and action. These ultimately interact with the core component, the kernel. To call this an inverted pyramid is to misunderstand the relation. If the data were arranged with external interfaces and stimuli on the bottom in both cases, and deepest internal components on the top in both cases, the master genes and the kernel would both be on the top, and the specialized functions and user-controlled programs would both be arrayed on the bottom. Thus, both would be pyramids, neither inverted.
As constructed, the analogy also fails due to the fact that Linux operating systems are well known to be extremely stable. The vast majority of the Internet’s servers, most likely including the one hosting this web page, run Linux. They do this precisely because it is stable, and downtime is thus minimized.
The parallels between organic genetic structures and Linux design in a correctly arranged comparison both demonstrate and help to explain this stability.
The author of this article has either failed to understand operating systems or has made a deliberate misstatement, arranging the evidence in exactly the wrong order to attempt to make a point that the evidence not only does not support, but directly contradicts.
N.Leonard
May 31st, 2010
I think both of you may be missing the point a bit here.
This article is not about Windows versus Linux, it is about biological versus artificial operating systems. The reason this article compares Linux to E. coli is because Linux is pretty much the most stable operating system out there.
The point is that even our most stable, and arguably most well built, operating system simply does not stack up well to a biologically evolved operating system.
Fill
Jun 7th, 2010
In programming we call reuse being DRY, which stands for Don’t Repeat Yourself. It speeds up the debugging process and reduces the amount of code.
I call BS on the assertion that biology isn’t DRY because it’s more resistant to ‘crashes’. If anything, it might be advantageous by being less prone to single points of failure from random changes/mutations. But in computers, if you have random changes in memory, well, then the hardware is faulty.
More realistically, the reason why something like Linux has a more engineered style is, well, it was written by intelligent beings! It would be expected that E coli would have a more ad-hoc type style because it was evolved over time in nature. If you’ve looked at simulated evolutionary systems, they tend to create lots of odd extra and redundant traits.
John Coller
Mar 25th, 2011
Life has had 3.5 billion years of evolution (new versions) to work out the kinks. Lets see what Linux is like in 3.49999999 billion years time and then see if the theory holds up.