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"Water drop holds a trillion computers," by John Whitfield. Nature Science Update, 22 November 2001.
The basic tools of computing can be found in the very stuff responsible for making us---DNA. Though simple computing devices have been made from DNA before, a team of researchers has recently fashioned the first one that works autonomously. This new computer takes a DNA strand as input, treating the letters as if they were a string of ones and zeroes, and answers simple questions like whether the input string contains an odd number of zeroes. The hardware consists of two enzymes, one that cuts the DNA strand and another that sticks DNA pieces back together. These enzymes chomp through the strand according to the arrangement of DNA letters, until only one remains. This letter, interpreted as a one or a zero, is the program's output.
--- Rafe Jones
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