Bacteria Can Be Tuned into Living Computer

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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what you guys think about this post? are we already using this technology yet or not ?

Thank you for this post. It's refreshing to see this type of thing brought up again. Genetic computation is as far off as quantum computation but I think they'll parallel each other. I don't have any more to say but I hope others do.

Oh great. I can only imagine what a typical virus for this thing will be like.

I heard people say it before, but I'm starting to belive more and more that in the future humans will somehow merge with computer technology. Probably for many reasons and uses.

Originally posted by Alxandro
Oh great. I can only imagine what a typical virus for this thing will be like.

Literally, it would be a bacteriophage. But a regular computer virus would ostensibly also work, as those only work at higher levels than hardware.

I'm flagging this as bad news. I love technology but for practical and respected values it does have limits. I am quite distgusted as to why someone would do this.

I see 'defence' and 'slave' applications. NOTHING else.

I would be interested in any possible good uses of this (if there are any).

Originally posted by amanbuthimself
I'm flagging this as bad news. I love technology but for practical and respected values it does have limits. I am quite distgusted as to why someone would do this.

I see 'defence' and 'slave' applications. NOTHING else.

I would be interested in any possible good uses of this (if there are any).

Mass Information Merge.

Use living to facilitae the living. Use computation to increased the already sense of computation in the mind and... No more need for laptops?


I can see it now.. computers made only for gaming as a new console because people are the computers for information

reply to post by The Bear Man


I wish it could seem so good.

It could, just have to use

*rainbow hands*

Imaaaaagination.