Why Don’t Humans Crash Like Computers Do?

Which is more stable the Linux operating system or the human mind? We like to think that the brain or central logic of computers is very similar to our own brain and central nervous system. If that’s true then shouldn’t humans crash and need rebooting like your laptop does?

A research team at Yale claims to illustrate (above) just how nature’s approach at system design differs from the human approach.

The Yale team compared the evolution of organisms and computer operating systems by analyzing the control networks in both a bacterium Escherichia coli and the Linux operating system. They report their findings online in the May 3 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It is a commonplace metaphor that the genome is the operating system of aliving organism. We wanted to see if the analogy actually holds up,” said Mark Gerstein, the Albert L. Williams Professor of Biomedical Informatics; professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and computer science; and senior author of the paper.

Both E coli and the Linux networks are arranged in hierarchies, but with some notable differences in how they achieve operational efficiencies. The molecular networks in the bacteria are arranged in a pyramid, with a limited number of master regulatory genes at the top that control a broad base of specialized functions, which act independently.

In contrast, the Linux operating system is organized more like an inverted pyramid, with many different top-level routines controlling few generic functions at the bottom of the network. Gerstein said that this organization arises because software engineers tend to save money and time by building upon existing routines rather than starting systems from scratch.
“But it also means the operating system is more vulnerable to breakdowns because even simple updates to a generic routine can be very disruptive,” Gerstein said. To compensate, these generic components have to be continually fine-tuned by designers.

via PhysOrg