November 06, 2016 Sunday
Bedtime Story
Electronic vs. Biological Memory
Electronic vs. Biological Memory
Earlier I had written about the Williams-Kilburn tube which was
the first electronic computer memory that was capable of storing binary data and
was randomly accessible memory.
Only it had to be tested whether it really did work on an electronic
machine.
It came as a surprise to me know that both mechanical computing
machines such as differential analyzers and electronic computing machines such
as ENIAC came first; much before an electronic storage devise was built.
In biology, memory or information storage must have come first.
It had to have come first, specially the genetic memory and
cellular memory as they form the basis of evolution, learning and survival for
anything that can be remotely called alive.
Genetic memory of each and every cell that is currently surviving
is an extensive record of its evolutionary history since the genesis of life
(most likely in a dirty swampy puddle).
The innate immunity system works on this fact and allows an
absolutely newly born cell (or organism) to recognize a foreign invader and
raise alarm starting with the basic inflammatory response.
Of course, what is alien varies for every cell, be it may a
bacterium or a photoreceptor cell in retina of an owl.
Genetic memory is well known to all students of biology whereas
cellular biology remains less taught and even lesser discussed.
Whereas the genetic memory is an evolutionary record of 3.7
billion years of existence, cellular memory allows the cell to record its
history and adaptations after its birth.
The genetic sequence in case of cellular memory remains unchanged.
What does undergo remodeling is the chromatin structure via alterations
in histones and subtle chemical changes in the nuclear material such as
methylation.
These changes bring about greater stability to the future mitotic
divisions and hence learning and adaptation to the environment.
These changes occurring at the genetic level without modifying the
genetic sequence has been classified as epigenetic mechanisms and is an
engrossing subject on its own.
With the evolution of the super-specialized, electrical impulse-conducting
cell, the neuron, organisms got a shot in the arm as far as learning went.
It probably was as revolutionary to biology as transistors proved
to be for electronic computing.
Williams and Kilburn now decided to test this first electronic RAM.
What do you think they did?
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night and my fellow cousin ape.
Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, may I
suggest this large collection of Kids Songs:
Comparing the 2 memories
The massiveness of brain is simply due to the gigantic time span it had to evolve (over 3.7 billion years) combined with the arms race needed in the battle for survival and mating.
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