video game developers constantly strive to create the most lifelike games imaginable. Stanford physicist Ingmar Riedel-Kruse took a shortcut, and simply put living creatures in his games. Gaming meets biotechnology in biotic games.
Simple single-celled organisms - paramecium, in this case - wiggle their cilium about a small fluid chamber. A camera transmits images from this chamber onto a computer screen, where rudimentary graphics are superimposed over the image. Using a standard game controller, the player controls various stimuli, which in turn control the paramecium. In one case the stimulus is a light electrical current. In another, it's a chemical scent pumped into the fluid box.
It's really quite ingenious. See for yourself.
The hope here is that players will interact with the basic biological processes behind the games and become in the study of biology and biotechnology.
And don't worry about the whole torturing living creatures thing. They're single-celled. They don't have any feelings.
