Biology makes things far smaller and more complex than anything produced by human engineering.
The biotechnology revolution has for the first time given us the tools necessary to consider engineering on the molecular level. Research in DNA computation, launched by Len Adleman, has opened the door for experimental study of programmable biochemical reactions. The theory combines Hao Wang's purely mathematical Tiling Problem with the branched DNA constructions of Nadrian Seeman. This system represents a first step toward the ability to program molecular reactions and molecular structures. The Joint Penn-UDel Colloquium on the Nature of Computing meets on each month's third Friday.