This document discusses how nature is an innovation lab that utilizes algorithms and principles found in biological systems. It notes that DNA acts as high-density storage, cells have CPU and compilers to run programs to recreate themselves, and there are protein printers in each cell. Genetic algorithms were inspired by biological evolution using replication, mutation, and selection. The immune and neural systems demonstrate adaptive machine learning, and slime molds have been shown to recreate optimal networks without a nervous system through external memory processing.

1. ALGORITHMS
IN NATURE

2. NATURE IS AN
INNOVATION LAB

3. Life is an
Operating System

4. DNA = High density
storage
700TB / gram
Equivalent to 150 kilos of
230 3TB hard drives

5. Each cell has a CPU
& distributed
compilers

6. Each cell contains a
program that can
recreate itself

7. There’s a
programmable protein
3D printer in each cell

8. 1950 - Alan Turing proposes
a new kind of algorithms
inspired by biological
evolution

9. Principles of genetic
algorithms
Replicate best solutions
Introduce random mutations
Kill underperforming solutions

10. The Immune system as an
adaptive machine learning
system

11. Dendritic cells are data
scientists
Memory T-cells act as
predictive model storage

12. Neural networks
Rediscovered:1943

13. Slime molds
Don’t have a nervous system
use external memory to
process information

14. Slime molds
Recreated optimal US
highways
Solving Minimal Spanning Tree
Algorithm discovered in 1926

15. Traveling salesman problem
Took humanity over 40 years to solve

16. Ants solve it on a daily basis
Though each ant can’t even
remember the way back to
nest

17. Graph coloring problem
Closely related to maximal independent sets
Solved: 1976

18. Fruit fly bristles
Growth patterns form a
maximal independent set
ISCB award to Ziv Bar Joseph

19. You are seeing a
picture of a broccoli
A small number of genes encodes
an astonishing complexity

20. Fractals
Discovered in 1975
a natural phenomenon or a mathematical
set that exhibits a repeating pattern that
displays at every scale

21. The next breakthrough
is out there
sagie@sparkbeyond.com @mesagie