From: cjl <cjl@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 94 19:37:13 PST
To: Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com>
Subject: Re: DNA solution to Hamiltonian circuit?
In-Reply-To: <199411210556.VAA26633@jobe.shell.portal.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.941121222232.4011A-100000@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Sun, 20 Nov 1994, Hal wrote:

> There is an interesting crypto connection here in that the work was done by
> Len Adelman of USC, the "A" of RSA.
> 
> This research was reported in a recent issue of Science, but I am going by
> a report in Science News.  What I will describe is the gist of the work, but 
> I may have some details wrong.

[ . . . ]  reasonably accurate summary elided

> Then it was a matter of filtering the DNA for strands of the proper length
> which did not have any duplicate nodes.  The SN article wasn't clear about
> how this was done.

It's in the Nov. 11 issue of Science, accompanied by a nice Perspectives 
piece that someone with a better appreciation of the math might be able 
to understand.  Hal (or anyone else on the list who is willing to explain 
a little of the math to me, off the list) will get a free lesson in 
Molecular Biology and the polymerase chain reaction in return that should 
explain the physical construction of this  *genetic AlGorethem*   :-)


C. J. Leonard                     (    /      "DNA is groovy"
                                   \ /                - Watson & Crick
<cjl@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu>      / \     <--  major groove
                                  (    \
Finger for public key               \   )
Strong-arm for secret key             /    <--  minor groove
Thumb-screws for pass-phrase        /   )