Here's What's Awesome: Cell-Based Computers, Karaoke on the web

If Loverboy is right and everybody is working for the weekend, perhaps it's because the weekend is when Word of Mouth scours the web for unique, fascinating and unusual links. So, without further adieu, let us start from start...

Intel Inside... Your Liver
"DNA shares its essential features with computers – it stores, processes and communicates information." That's the premise behind living computers, which are computing systems designed to work in biological environments like living cells. In theory, a living computer could be set to monitor body processes for diseases or injury, and then trigger a medical response if needed.

The problem? Living computers haven't been complex enough to serve as logic gates - essentially, to answer questions about whether a cell might be showing signs of disease or injury. Scientists at Caltech have just crossed that important milestone and made a living computer that can act as a logic gate. And, so the theory goes, using living computers to monitor body activity could lead to remarkable new medical treatments:

Test-tube experiments in 2004 demonstrated how such a DNA computer doctor might work. Ehud Shapiro at the Weizmann Institute of Science created a system that could detect a marker molecule associated with prostate cancer and release an anti-cancer drug.

Using strings of logic gates, a similar system could combine signals from several different biomarkers to produce more complex responses, for example, cocktails of drugs or hormones.

Having said all this, the subject of cell-based computers is not a place for making "blue screen of death" jokes. [NewScientist]

You can survive without a job for ____ days
If your economic fortunes are being hit hard by the financial crisis, the web wants to help. Mashable.com has put together 200+ Tools for Surviving the Economic Crisis, from online accounting tools to job search engines to sites that help you find shopping discounts. A new tool in a similar vein is called Thrive, which not only pulls together your personal financial advice but turns it into actionable items to help you save more money. Thrive takes a look at your budget and suggests places where you could spend less or save more, from cutting back on driving to transferring your credit balance to a card with a lower interest rate. It even tells you how many days you can survive without a job - which may or may not be information you'd like to know. [CNet]

Karaoke 2.0
Online music sharing services like MySpace Music, iMeem and Last.fm get plenty of attention, but there's a growing online community for karaoke enthusiasts to sing to and with each other. MySpace Karaoke claims more than 4 million user visits and more than a half million karaoke performances, while the video-on-demand Karaoke Channel is launching an online service. This obviously isn't for everybody, but for enthusiasts it's a new and fairly tech-free way to sing to an audience that's not limited to the Wednesday night crowd at your local TGI Friday's. [TechCrunch]

As the above video suggests, hit us with your best shot - not your best karaoke performance, but an awesome link in the comments field.

(Photo by mknowles)