A New Breed of Thinking Computer? A team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a handful of other groups are working to develop hybrid biocomputers that marry living nerve cells with silicon circuits to create smarter computers. If they succeed, they could set the foundation for brain-like computer systems that could find solutions on their own, with no need for step-by-step programming instructions. So far, researchers have joined two neurons from leeches and linked them to a personal computer, which sent signals to each cell and correctly extracted the answer to a simple addition problem. The program that links the neurons and the PC, dubbed "wetware," is based on chaos theory, using the results to tune the neurons and alter the way they communicate. Ultimately, brain-like chips will be more creative and may mirror both the good and bad aspects of human thinking. William L. Ditto, who heads the project at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says it will be 10 years or more until biocomputers are commercially available. (Business Week 06/21/99) http://www.physics.gatech.edu/people/faculty/wditto.html