Membrane Computing: An Introduction (Book Review)

It would seem that at the moment, computer scientists are showing a ceaseless interest in the world of biology. One would be forgiven in thinking that this is a relatively new phenomenon in Computer Science, but of course it is not. Since the 1950s (maybe even before), biology has been giving food for thought to computer scientists and mathematicians about the nature of computation itself. Biology has been (and continues to be) seen as rich sources of inspiration, both for creating novel approaches to solving computational problems and also for providing new foundations for computation itself i.e. a new way of doing computation. Think of the recent advances in DNA computing: using the natural world to actually DO computation with - a move away from silicon. This book is primarily concerned with a new way of doing computation. However, the book also attempts to engage the reader in the possibility of proving new methods for solving problems, in much the same way as genetic algorithms and the like have over the past few decades. In addition, the book attempts to close the loop between biologically inspired computing (taking ideas from biology) and biologically motivated computing (trying to understand biology using computing) by discussing how it might be possible to shed some more light on to the nature of the biology itself and how that works through the use of membrane computing.