[andai]

Since the algae themselves appear to be producing the electricity, does that mean they are electrically charged and could be sorted into groups of more/less efficient algae? ie. using artificial selection to select for electrical output.

[Eric_WVGG]

my first thought before reading the article was, "are we even talking about an electric computer here?"

There are all sorts… some MIT wonks built one that plays tik tak toe that's made of tinker-toys and powered by a crank… in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, a computer built from a church pipe organ is used to decrypt third reich punch cars… all quite feasible.

But yeah, this is algae-for-electricity… pretty cool regardless, but it does make me wonder if some sort of bio-abacus could be possible

[mbil]

Riffing on this idea but with no real understanding of the mechanism: could crispr be used to extract the “produces electricity” gene and then put that into bigger organisms?

[mrcartmeneses]

Only if by “electricity producing gene” you mean “is a photosynthesising algae gene”