SMRTR TechAug 20, 2026TechEBlog

MIT Creates Living Transistors, Bacteria Colonies Capable of Switching Signals and Adding Numbers in a Petri Dish

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MIT researchers engineered five strains of common plant bacteria to act as living transistors, building circuits that perform binary math and logic operations on agar plates. Colonies communicate via chemical signals across 5-millimeter gaps, completing computations in 8 hours. The goal is deploying these circuits on crops to detect drought or disease and trigger protective responses.

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