Magnetic bacteria a model for future biocomputers

BBC : Researchers at the UK’s University of Leeds and Japan’s Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have created magnets from a type of bacterium that eats iron. The team studied the way that proteins inside Magnetospirilllum magneticum collect, shape, and position the iron into nanomagnets. The researchers then used that method to replicate the behavior outside the bacteria. Besides magnets, the researchers created electrical nanowires from the membrane of cells; they again used a protein, this time from human lipid molecules. Both devices could be used in future biological computers to create larger hard drives and speedier connections. Results of both— the nanomagnets and the nanowires studies—appear in the science and technology journal Small, published by Wiley.