X-Message-Number: 12557
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 17:25:50 -0400
From: Jan Coetzee <>
Subject: Gas Powered Computers 

I guess the uploaders are going to be loaded into gas not silicon?

"Gas Powered Computers Closer To Reality - Magazine

 LONDON (Reuters) - A super-fast, minuscule molecular computer driven by
gases may be a
 step closer to reality thanks to research by a Berlin-based chemist,
New Scientist magazine
 reported Thursday.

 James La Clair, formerly with the Scripps Research Institute in
California, had developed a
 molecule that could be switched on and off by nitrogen and carbon
dioxide, it said.

 ``This finding provides a new cornerstone for future electronics,'' La
Clair told the weekly
 magazine.

 ``This technology may some day lead to computers that only need gases
and light to think.''

 Molecular computing could help to solve a major problem facing the
technology industry -- the
 physical limitations of silicon-based transistors.

 Scientists at Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, have warned of
problems with further scaling
 down of transistors.

 Computers based on molecules, not on silicon, could make computers in
the future much more
 powerful and compact.

 ``Molecular circuits could be just a fraction of a nanometer (one
thousand-millionth of a meter)
 wide. Researchers have already created molecular wires, logic gates (a
building block of
 computers) and switches, which may some day be hooked up to make a
working computer a
 fraction of the size of existing machines,'' the magazine said.

 La Clair's work is interesting because unlike already developed
molecular, switches which are
 made up of large groups of molecules, he has devised a switch based on
a single molecule.

 ``In the presence of nitrogen, the molecule known as SENSI, flips into
the fluorescing or 'on'
 state. Replacing nitrogen with CO2 switches it to the 'off' state in
which it cannot fluoresce,'' the
 magazine said.

 The research is still in its early stages and there are still many
problems to be worked out, but
 New Scientist said La Clair was confident he would eventually be able
to overcome them and
 develop digital devices consisting of many molecules that could be
turned on and off by tiny
 amounts of gases."

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