MIT engineers have transformed bacterial cells into living calculators that   
   can compute logarithms, divide, and take square roots, using three or fewer   
   genetic parts. Inspired by how analog electronic circuits function, the   
   researchers created synthetic    
   computation circuits by combining existing genetic "parts," or engineered   
   genes, in novel ways.    
      
   The circuits perform those calculations in an analog fashion by exploiting   
   natural biochemical functions that are already present in the cell rather than   
   by reinventing them with digital logic, thus making them more efficient than   
   the digital circuits    
   pursued by most synthetic biologists, according to Rahul Sarpeshkar and   
   Timothy Lu, the two senior authors on the paper, describing the circuits in   
   the May 15 online edition of Nature.   
      
   http://phys.org/news/2013-05-analog-circuits-cells-logarithms-square.html   
      
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