"Paul Preuss - Human Error" - читать интересную книгу автора (Preuss Paul)

"I was yelled at a lot when I was a kid," said Adrian contritely.

"Spare me the self-analysis." But Toby was mad at himself for using big words to ask dumb
questions.

He looked on in fascination as Adrian played a manic game with his computer screens, conjuring up
diagrams of involute protein structures, rolling them in space, examining their spines and undulations and
cavities, flexing them, tearing them apart, making them dance. It went on a long time, and occasionally
Adrian emitted groans and murmurs of delight as he put the graphic creatures through their paces.

Suddenly Adrian slumped in his chair. "Well, a virus can do only so many tricks. You're probably
wondering why I'm wasting my time with 'em."

"Actually, it hadn't occurred to me to ask," Toby said. "I'm quite enchanted with your pretty
pictures."

"When it occurs to you to ask"тАФdespite his evident determination to make a good impression,
sarcasm crept into Adrian's voiceтАФ"it's because I'm looking for the simplest possible natural models for
self-replicating systems. You really do know what we do here, don't you?"
 "Only that you make protein-based computer parts. Or so Dr. Chatterjee has led me to believe."

"That's only the first step," said Adrian. "Cook 'em in a vat. We've already got that
hacked. Now we're try ing to get them to build themselves. Viruses don't really qualify, of
courseтАФthey have to take over a cell's machinery to reproduce. But the artificial organism I'm trying to
build needs a scaffolding as simple as the coat protein of this virusтАФa molecule with no
more than a couple of thousand atoms in it. Something that can be built, torn apart, modified
with artificial enzymes I'll provide. Following directions from a program I want you to write."

"You're trying to build a self-replicating computer?"

"Yeah. Maybe it'll even look like this. But this is just the box the chips come in," he said, tapping the
screen. "The box-building program is only one of the things I need you for, though."

"Oh? What else?"

Adrian turned from the console, the dim-colored light from the screens illuminating the head that was
too big even for his gangling body, the features that were too broad even for his outsized head. Adrian
Storey was not an attractive man, but Toby had already glimpsed in him the passionate dreaming, the
capacity for excited discovery, of a bright and lonely child. Adrian smiled. "1 gotcha hooked, don't I?
You twerp."

ZYMOPHASE

Zymophase. The onset of bioelectronic activity in an
assembledepigeneticsystem.
тАФHandbook of Bioelectronic Engineering
(revised),BlevinsandStorey,eds.