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发表于 2010-4-2 00:09:06
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本帖最后由 hawkwolf 于 2010-4-2 00:14 编辑
Your Screen Saver Could Help Create New Life
The Cloud Brain
Software designed to detect life in outer space is now being repurposed to look for signs of artificial life developing in complex computer systems on Earth
以前设计用于探测地外生命的软件,现正被用于在地球上那错综复杂的计算机系统里、搜寻人造生命的迹象。
In the beginning, there were organic molecules. And they were good, but unorganized. Then, those organic molecules formed proteins, and evolution kicked in and started a three-billion-year journey culminating in you and me. But the question of just how life made the jump from inert organic chemicals to the complex building blocks of life has vexed scientists for years.
在地球上生命出现之初，只有些没有组织起来形成有机结构的有机分子；而后，这些有机分子结合在一起，各种蛋白质出现了； 接着，进化参与了进来，并持续了30亿年才最终演变出了你、我一样的生命。问题是，什么原因使得生命从那些非活性的有机化合物里构建出复杂的生命基石的，这个问题已困扰了科学家很多年。
A company hopes that software originally designed to find extraterrestrial life will now help them unlock the origin of life on this planet. The company, EvoGrid, has built on the historic distributed computing program SETI@Home, creating a program that harnesses unused computing power to simulate the random, emergent patterns of complexity that stewarded the jump from organic compounds to large-scale proteins.
一个科研小组希望，那本设计来搜寻地外生命的软件，现在也可以帮助他们来揭开地球上生命起源之谜。这个科研小组，EvoGrid（进化技术网格），已经依托有名的 SETI@Home 分布式计算计划建立了他们的程序，以利用空闲的计算能力来模拟生命出现之初那种无序的、变化无常的、却使大分子蛋白质从简单的有机化合物中出现了的复杂环境。
EvoGrid utilizes two open source programs, one that links together the computers and the other that runs the simulation. The linking program, Boinc, provides EvoGrid with supercomputer power at virtually no cost. Boinc already links together over 500,000 computers that together generate twice as much digital muscle as the world's most powerful supercomputer.
The simulation program, Gromacs, creates a virtual soup of organic molecules in the computer, and then models how those molecules randomly link together. Given the chemical rules that govern the molecules, they will, over time, produce more and more complex networks of molecules. EvoGrid hopes that those networks of molecules will display the patterns of the basic building blocks of life.
EvoGrid使用两套开源程序。 一套用于把众多电脑连接起来，另一套用于运行模拟。
连接了众多电脑的 BOINC 平台，给 EvoGrid 提供了免费的“超级计算机”的处理能力。 BOINC平台连接着超过50万台电脑，众多电脑汇聚成的计算速度两倍于现今全球最强大超级计算机的数据处理能力。
模拟程序，Gromacs，在计算机上构建了一份虚拟的有机分子“原始浓汤”，来生成有机分子如何随机结合成大分子的众多模型。在定义了这些虚拟有机分子的化学特性参数后，这些分子随着时间的推移会不断产生出更多、更复杂的分子链。 EvoGrid希望能通过这些分子链来揭示构成“生命基石”的众多模式。
So far, the project has yet to evolve any virtual life, but the project just got started. Eventually, EvoGrid hopes to produce simulations on so large a scale that they can be used to generate computer models for the development of new drugs or the study of complex diseases.
到目前为止，该项目尚未能演变出任何一种虚拟生命，这项目仍是刚刚起步。EvoGrid希望有朝一日能为开发新药物或研究复杂疾病的计算模型运行更大规模的模拟。 |
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发表于 2010-4-1 14:43:20