Play Pacman, Pinball, and Pong With a Paramecium

An anonymous reader writes "Science is rarely ever this cool! 'Physicist Ingmar Riedel-Kruse and his team from Stanford University have done just that by creating versions of classic games that you can navigate by physically controlling living organisms. A game called PAC-mecium is Pacman with a twist: players use a console to change the polarity of an electrical field in a fluid chamber filled with paramecia, which makes the organisms move in different directions. A camera sends real-time images to a computer, where they are superimposed onto a game board (see video above). By looking at the screen, a player can guide the paramecia to eat virtual yeast cells and make them avoid Pacman-like fish. A microprocessor tracks the movement of the organisms to keep score.' Also available are versions of Pinball, Pong, and soccer."

Comments

do it with electrodes in a frog's brain

[circletimessquare]

go to i95 or you rlocal 8 lane highway, play frogger for real

since frog muscles will respond to electric jolts after death, do it with a dead frog, so PETA can't complain

then you have something even better than the classic arcade: zombie frogger

or, more in style with the electrical bolts and mad scientist-messing-with-life theme here: frankenstein frogger

Re:the arrogance of this

[supertrinko]

Correction, there is no apostrophe.

Re:Whoah

[Xyrus]

I know it does. I just upped the impulse in your amygdala and slightly lowered your dopamine. It was a slight penalty to my logical reasoning score but gave me much needed morality points.