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[Vattic]

A team of US scientists have engineered bacteria that can solve complex mathematical problems faster than anything made from silicon.

The research, published today in the Journal of Biological Engineering, proves that bacteria can be used to solve a puzzle known as the Hamiltonian Path Problem. Imagine you want to tour the 10 biggest cities in the UK, starting in London (number 1) and finishing in Bristol (number 10). The solution to the Hamiltonian Path Problem is the the shortest possible route you can take.

This simple problem is surprisingly difficult to solve. There are over 3.5 million possible routes to choose from, and a regular computer must try them out one at a time to find the shortest. Alternatively, a computer made from millions of bacteria can look at every route simultaneously. The biological world also has other advantages. As time goes by, a bacterial computer will actually increase in power as the bacteria reproduce.

Bacteria make computers look like pocket calculators

It seems our problems are over!

[Lordinquisitor]

*looks a the text*

*looks at the beer*

*puts the beer away*

[Tenebrais]

Programming a computer by genetically engineering bacteria?

Fantastic!

[Ampersand]

i ran across this a couple days ago. Yeah, I'm impressed, but think the primary problem is that, in order to get the answer out, you need a DNA sequencer on hand.

[Dakk]

While this may seem impressive, it'll take loads of research time and work to create methods and systems to apply them to all tasks an average computer handles, but it shound't be impossible for us to see a bacteria based processor in the future, though it'd be sorta awkward at times:

Honey, the PC is being slow! Did you forget to feed it again?

[Eduren]

"Dude, I think my computer has a virus."

"Did you sneeze on it?"

[buman]

The problem is bacteria tend to mutate rather fast, determining if your bacteria was operating correctly would be impossible. You would still need a traditional reliable computer to verify the results by comparing a large number of bacteria outputs to see if the route is possible and if it is infact the shortest.

In the methods they are using they already know the correct answer to the problem so can check to see if the output was correct right away. For real applications you don't know the correct answer.

[Slappy Moose]

:O!

[ein]

Interesting concept, but totally useless right now.
The article is also pretty exaggerated.

[TheDJ17]

Bacteria!

[Rowanas]

Yeah. Regular computers solved that problem about 10 years ago using an elegant solution created by some guy with too much time on his hands.

[Lord Dakoth]

Wow. In a few years, I might be able to say, "Teacher, my computer ate my homework."

[Foa]

Eh, I've been waiting for this ever since a scientist made two strains of the flu ( positive, and negative ) that can be used to make batteries.

I hope we go into biotechnology, so that I can eventually ride of a battle-air-whale.

[Name Lips]

There are over 3.5 million possible routes to choose from, and a regular computer must try them out one at a time to find the shortest.

Wow. Whoever wrote this has very little notion of efficient algorithm design.

Technically, in DF, a dwarf has a near-infinite number of possible paths to get from any one point to any other point. That does NOT mean he would have to test every one of those neigh-infinite paths, measure them all, and then decide upon the shortest one.

There are always shortcuts and optimizations. This is a version of the Traveling Salesman problem, and efficient algorithms have been developed that solve it in a minimal time, using methods other than "brute force" calculation of every possible path. I can come up with references if you like, but I'll have to dig through my textbooks.

[Shad0wyone]

My only question is, would installing things consist of introducing new bacteria to the mix?
Of course that leads to the question, what would Vista be as a bacteria?

Edit: After actually reading it, I figured out they edit the DNA of them, which instead leads to the question, what would Vista mutate the bacteria into?