A team of biology and mathematics experts has created living computers by adding genes to Escherichia coli bacteria, showing that computing in living
cells is feasible.
The researchers from Davidson College, North Carolina and Missouri Western State University, Missouri, say that their work opens the door to a number
of applications like data storage.
They say that their work may also provide a tool for manipulating genes for genetic engineering.
A research article describing the study, published in the open access Journal of Biological Engineering, says that the bacterial computers created by
the research team were able to solve a classic mathematical puzzle, known as the burnt pancake problem.
The burnt pancake problem involves a stack of pancakes of different sizes, each of which has a golden and a burnt side. The aim is to sort the stack
so the largest pancake is on the bottom and all pancakes are golden side up. Each flip reverses the order and the orientation of one or several
consecutive pancakes, and the aim is to stack them properly in the fewest number of flips.
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