An MIT biotech researcher has been able to run the iconic computer game Doom using actual gut bacteria. Lauren Ramlan didn’t get the game going on a digital simulation of bacteria, but turned actual bacteria into pixels to display the 30-year-old FPS, as reported by Rock Paper Shotgun.
Specifically, Ramlan created a display inside of a cell wall made entirely of E. coli bacteria. The 32x48 1-bit display may not win any resolution awards, but who cares, right? It’s Doom running on bacteria. The researcher dosed the bacteria with fluorescent proteins to get them to light up just like digital pixels.
The title is misleading and the article even points it out. She is displaying Doom (which is still cool and kinda fucking crazy) on bacteria. It is not being processed by the bacteria.
The day we can use biocomputers like that is when criminals start hiding URLs in their DNA to rickroll the police chasing them
Fuck rickrolls, I’d hide the EICAR test string and watch their lab computers lock up whenever they try to process my sample.