Rat cells grown onto microscopic silicon chips worked as tiny robots, perhaps a first step towards a self-assembling device.

Scientists at the University of Florida made a living 'brain' by extracting 25,000 neurons from a rat's brain and culturing them inside a glass dish. The scientists were able to train the 'brain' to control the plane in the simulator and to react to conditions of the plane.

Researchers are experimenting with "smart microbes", pre-programmed cells that are capable of detecting biological weapons or removing pollution from a lake.

Steve Potter, a researcher at the University of Georgia has developed a unique hybrid robot (or 'hybrot') that uses cultured neurons to control a robotic mechanism. The knowledge gained could lead to computer chips modeled on biological systems ? and perhaps even to computers that incorporate biological components. Such computers might one day learn, repair themselves, and perform certain tasks ? such as dictation ? at which binary-based systems are miserable.

Bacteria have found a new vocation - as nanoscale construction workers. Such bugs might form microbial machines that could repair wounds or build microscopic electrical circuits.

A research team at
Germany's Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry has merged computer chips
with living tissue. This almost unnoticed event, published in a dry
scientific paper and reported in the small print of The Washington Post last
month, is as momentous an event as the first organ transplant or the first
cloned animal. It opens up the possibility of using computer technology to
supplement human intelligence, rather than replace it

British Telecom researchers are studying bacterial colonies to help develop communication networks that will self-organise and self-configure.

In laboratories across the country, innovations such as toxin-tracking
bacteria mounted on chips and a robotic arm directed by monkey brain waves
are blurring the line between what is alive and what is a machine. Though some might see this as the stuff of nightmares, researchers see promise for dramatic advances in medicine. Deciphering the communications of nerve cells, for instance, would help in building better prosthetic limbs.

Can bacteria be logical? Yes they can, say researchers who have made
genetically engineered bugs that do the same job as the components of
a microchip. These smart bugs will crunch on chemical inputs rather than digital
bits. They could one day be sent into waste-water plants to hunt out
toxic chemicals. Or they could tell doctors what proteins are present
in body fluids.

Researchers are attempting to create a new kind of computer from simple-cell bacteria that can compute and are endowed with 'intelligent' genes that can perform simple operations and perhaps even execute programs.