Digital DNA

DNA is digital! Never thought of it like that before, but it made all kinds of sense when I read Glyn Moody's rationale in the early chapters of his book on the history of bioinformatics, a new science empowered by the availability of the Human Genome. Protein is analog. DNA is digital. DNA is a four-symbol digital code, rather than a two-symbol one, but it is n less digital for being richer in that regard. It is easy to forget that the difference between digital and analogy coding is not based on sticking to zeros and ones. To be digital, all a code requires is that it be put together out of discrete building blocks that are never intermediate between one state and another. The letters A,G,T and C (standing for DNA's four bases) are every bit as digital as my computer's two-state flip flop circuits and a disk drive's two-state magnetic domains.

Moody's book also uses a style for doing footnotes that intrigued me because it looks so natural, especially for web citations. For example, the second footnote on page 9 of the book reads:

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The Connection:Digital Code of Life: How Bioinformatics is Revolutionizing Science, Medicine, and Business / Glyn Moody (Wiley; 2004) was a serrendipidty find on the "new arrivals" shelf of the UNBC Library. I'll be reading it for a while! Got in the first few chapters at the Four Seasons Pool in PG last weekend, sitting on the sidelines while the kids were swam.