A grain of sand, a line of code, and everything

William Blake had a grain of sand that simulates the world. Stanford University now has “Software [that] Emulates [the] Lifespan of [an] Entire Organism“.

Here’s Blake’s take:

Auguries of Innocence

by William Blake [pictured here]

TO see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage

Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons

Shudders hell thro’ all its regions.

A dog starv’d at his master’s gate

Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road

Calls to heaven for human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted hare

A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,

A cherubim does cease to sing.

The game-cock clipt and arm’d for fight

Does the rising sun affright….

Here’s Stanford’s take:

Stanford researchers produce first complete computer model of an organism

BY MAX MCCLURE

 The Covert Lab incorporated more than 1,900 experimentally observed parameters into their model of the tiny parasite Mycoplasma genitalium.

In a breakthrough effort for computational biology, the world’s first complete computer model of an organism has been completed, Stanford researchers reported last week in the journal Cell.

A team led by Markus Covert [pictured here], assistant professor of bioengineering, used data from more than 900 scientific papers to account for every molecular interaction that takes place in the life cycle of Mycoplasma genitalium, the world’s smallest free-living bacterium.

By encompassing the entirety of an organism in silico, the paper fulfills a longstanding goal for the field….