Stanford University Bioengineer Creates Organic Microbe-Powered Video Games

Bioengineer Ingmar Riedel-Kruse of Stanford University has created a series of games where players control organic microbes.

The games, which you can see showcased in the video below, places a collection of single-celled protozoans called paramecia in a thumbnail-sized chamber with electrode-lined edges. The paramecia are attracted to the electrodes when activated, so the player-scientist can dictate direction by activating the electrodes. There's a controller to dictate cardinal directions.

Using motion capture software to identify the paramecia, Riedel-Kruse created games where the organisms can play soccer, light up a grid of lights for points, play a Brick Breaker clone, or eat pellets and avoid a giant fish like a game of Pac-Man.

It's a bizarre, augmented reality organic video game, and it's all for science somehow.

[Source: Popular Science]