Revision as of 19:24, 14 February 2010

19 January 2010

Why make something noisy?

• The benefit of sampling
• or maybe trying every ombination along a spectrum
• a maze
• Minesweeper? - except a wrong turn can't be completely detrimental to the whole system .... maybe though - aging / death discussion

Positive feedback loops --> bistable, bimodal phenotype

• ex. S. cerevisiae with galactose (Acar paper) - have 2 positive, 1 negative - negative allows switching between states
• perhaps the two states can be complementary to each other
• random on/off transition
• barcodes? decoding, decrypting - combination lock-ish - bacteria as a random number generator - stops when it fits the "slot"

Meeting with Dr. Campbell

• went through papers - paper simulating how noise can continue an oscillatory system
• positive feedback loops are important
• Minesweeper --> maybe Battleship
• the aging papers Dr. C sent - thinking can somehow randomly switch something on, if beneficial to survival @ that time, will select for those and kill the others
• maybe some cell differentiation using +/- feedback
• maybe some antenna-ish like sampling - a Biosensor - cell has lots of sensors, randomly sample for something, if detect something with one of the sensors then report...do something else while other cells can keep sensing

25 January 2010

I still like the oscillatory idea - noise driving oscillation --> What is oscillation good for? Combining oscillation and quorum sensing - synchronize system

Biosensors = about the promoter - want sensor up/down (on/off, like an antenna) from cell to cell to sense environment --> can maybe start positive feedback loop to amplify report / signal