Harnessing bacteria to turn gears

Science
Harnessing bacteria to turn gears

bacteria_turn_gears.jpg

This looks neat, a team of scientists from the Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University have figured out how to get bacteria to spin tiny gears. Though the gears themselves are small, the bacteria are even smaller, so apparently it takes hundreds of them swimming in swarms to produce enough energy to turn the gears. Anyone have ideas about how to turn these gear motions into logic gates? I’d love to have a bacteria-powered computer! [via boingboing]

8 thoughts on “Harnessing bacteria to turn gears

  1. vivi says:

    Maybe something like this ? (LEGO logic gates) :
    http://goldfish.ikaruga.co.uk/logic.html

    Actually quite interesting. A problem of nanobots seem to be the energy source and how to extract energy from the environment. On the other hand bacteria are good at making energy out of just about anything… Maybe the nanobot invasion will in fact be a nanocyborg one.

  2. Jordaan says:

    Uh oh, running out of juice. Somebody cough!

    1. NekoHunter says:

      Bacteria powered Difference Engine perhaps?

  3. Anonymous says:

    Awesome:D

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