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

Just a game

[ian_from_brisbane]

Some higher species might be doing the same thing with us humans.

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

[dAzED1]

uhh...it's worse than dog fights? You're trolling, right? Dogs are social, self-aware beings that can solve complex problems, have emotions, form social bonds, suffer, experience joy, etc. Paramecium...are single-celled organisms. You might as well be concerned about torturing a rock, or air; they have no ability to feel pain, and certainly no ability to suffer.