Magnet-making bacteria to build Biological Computers of the future

Magnet-making bacteria may be building biological computers of the future.A team from the UK's University of Leeds and Japan's Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have used microbes that eat iron.

As they ingest the iron, the microbes create tiny magnets inside themselves, similar to those in PC hard drives.The research may lead to the creation of much faster hard drives.

The study appears in the journal Small.

As technology progresses and computer components get smaller and smaller, it becomes harder to produce electronics on a nano-scale.

So researchers are now turning to nature - and getting microbes involved.