In the movie saga’Avatar‘, the world of Pandora is totally interconnected: the Na’vi they can be linked through their hair -which is actually a neural connection made up of a multitude of filaments and highly sensitive nerve ramifications- they create a link, in such a way that their senses come together and share; They can do the same with other living beings in that world, such as trees or animals, creating a brilliant ‘whole’ that reacts in sync.
This, certainly, is science fiction. But. As they say, reality tends to surpass it: the research group of the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio), a joint center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the University of Valencia (UV) is working on a project that applies genetic engineering to bacteria to make them capable of reacting to a stimulus associated with a signal from a linguistic code .
Specifically, the authors have programmed bacteria to be able to ‘read’ morse code, a step prior to using these living organisms in computing or creating ‘living’ neural networks that allow them to have artificial intelligence. A technology that, applied in the future to other organisms, such as fungi, could create something similar to what the James Cameron film shows us: an interconnected and intelligent system.
Technology and biology come together
Nature has always been a source of inspiration for technology. But for a few decades, science has tried to bring both together to directly take advantage of the properties of living organisms. For example, ‘living chips’ capable of playing video games have been created. Or, now, this Spanish team specialized in biological computing is studying how to use natural elements to process and store information by genetically modifying a population of bacteria of the species Escherichia coli to react to a certain signal. Thus, they create something similar to a computer that does not need programs, but living beings themselves act as such.
These bacteria are capable of learning thanks to the fact that a memory has been incorporated into their genes: they have already been capable of learning to play tic-tac-toe against humans and receiving as their only knowledge whether they have won or lost. “Now we are designing intelligent bacteria that are capable of learning to decode signals,” says the director of the laboratory, in a statement. Alfonso Jaramillo.
The principle they apply is based on Physics, on the phenomenon known as resonance. «The particles that make up matter have a characteristic vibration frequency. If you act on them with the same frequency, they will vibrate with the maximum possible amplitude,” explains Jaramillo, who began his research career as a theoretical physicist at the Corpuscular Physics Institute (IFIC), another CSIC-UV mixed center near the I2SysBio.
Working like a ‘super neuron’
Specifically, the team modifies some bacterial genes so that they oscillate (react) to a certain signal, in this case a chemical pulse with a specific time duration like Morse code signals (made up of long and short pulses). The resonance instructions are stored in the memory of the bacteria. Upon receiving the programmed signal, the bacteria generate proteins that cause it to light up (fluorescence), in a process similar to that of the synapses in our brain.
“We thus obtain a neuromorphic system, a population of bacteria that functions as a superneurona». That is, a colony of bacteria that functions as a whole. According to Jaramillo, in the future the sum of the reactions of this population of bacteria would be capable of decoding any letter of the Morse code, although at the moment they can only read one letter at a time. Still, this is a first step to create an artificial neural network, a concept inspired by biology, where a set of units (neurons) are connected to each other to transmit signals.
“If we could use this system in fungi, which have been shown to be able to conduct electricity and create networks between trees, we could create something similar to the planet Pandora from the movie Avatar,” says Jaramillo.
The project, which has received funding from the State Research Agency of the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the United States Office of Naval Research (which supported developments such as the GPS system), aims to demonstrate that biological organisms can be used to make computation, a biological computer that, according to Jaramillo, has advantages even over the quantum computer. “A living organism does not consume electricity, it is robust to damage, it can be integrated into other living organisms, it has a low cost, and it reproduces itself,” he sums up.
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