Finally, a use for bacteria
Okay, there are some other benefits of bacteria (as the TV ads for live yogurts keep reminding us), but I’m talking about something altogether more powerful: bacterial computers.
A group of scientists in Missouri and North Carolina have used bacteria to find solutions to an (essentially mathematical) problem: navigating a group of dots so that each dot is only crossed through once, and then returning the first dot – as in the image on the right. It’s called the Hamiltonian Path Problem, if you’re interested.
So, it’s not quite Windows 8 yet. In fact, the importance of the study has been questioned variously, but the reason I love it is that it’s using living organisms to find correct answers to mathematical problems, by simply chucking a designed molecule at them. We’re starting simple (and slow), but then so did computers. Anyone remember the ZX81?
Some other developments in this space over recent years include:
- DNA computers that can diagnose cancer
- Leech neurons that can do sums
- Molecular devices that only treat cells that need it
So why is this all important? Solving hugely difficult computational problems like predicting the weather or curing complex diseases has two approaches now. The first is “synthetic”: computers, silicon, small machines with cogs and motors, and the like.
The second is “organic”: recognising millions of years of evolution, and saying – how can we use that? Given that a lump of biological material can create something as fantastically capable as a human brain, why not harness the same systems to do other things?
And that’s where the genius is: short-cutting innovation by harnessing what’s already out there.
