Obviously E. coli can't flip real pancakes. Instead E. coli flip a section of their DNA. The "spatula" is a protein called Hin, which was taken from salmonella bacteria and injected into the E. coli bacteria. In salmonella, Hin works like an on/off switch, determining which of two proteins will be produced to help hide, and keep alive, the bacteria when it infects an organism. In the computer, the proteins make a bacterium resistant to antibiotics and keep it alive -- but only if it solves the problem. If a bacterium can't solve the problem, i.e. flip the pancake into the correct order, antibiotics kill it. So far the computer has only solved a two-pancake problem which, admittedly, isn't terribly difficult. Creating bacteria that can solve the Burnt Pancake Problem using multiple pancakes will be difficult, said Haynes. Once a solution is found, however, it will be cheap to reproduce. "All it would cost is about a tablespoon of sugar," said Haynes. Don't expect to see a bacterial super computer at Best Buy any time soon though. According to Tom Knight, a synthetic biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "this will open the door to a wide variety of biological computing." But that includes only simple computing, like telling researchers how many times they have encountered a certain chemical. "This won't make your Xbox run faster," said Knight. Related Links: Eric Bland's blog: Interior Design How Stuff Works: How Bacteria Become Resistant to Antibiotics |
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