What’s the difference between a thimbleful of bacteria and a supercomputer? Believe it or not, bacteria contain more circuits and more processing power.
This is perhaps not too surprising given that information processing is central to living systems, from individual cells responding to chemical signals to complex organisms navigating their environment. But what’s even more interesting is that after decades of trying, we’re finally enclosing cells, molecules, and even whole organisms to begin performing computational tasks for their own ends.
Microchips in smartphones and laptops, let alone supercomputers, will not replace biological computers. But as bioengineers come to understand the wet, squishy components that nature provides, biological computers will eventually evolve, from smart materials and logistical solutions to intelligent machines powered by trace amounts of energy. I’m starting to understand where it can help.
If your application seems quirky and eclectic, that’s the problem. “Biocomputing is not in competition with conventional computers,” says Ángel Goni Moreno of the Polytechnic University of Madrid in Spain. “It’s a fundamentally different perspective that can help tackle problems in previously unreachable areas.” It may force us to rethink our assumptions about what we can afford.
For decades, computing has been dominated by silicon chips. They consist of billions of tiny switches called transistors that encode data in bits, or binary numbers. If the switch is open and current flows, this represents 1. If the switch is closed…
