"Doom Runs on Gut Bacteria: A Microbial Gaming Breakthrough"

MIT graduate student Lauren Ramlan has developed a method to display the game Doom using a grid of E. coli bacteria, leveraging the bacteria's ability to fluoresce as a form of digital display. The game runs on a standard computer, with isolated E. coli cells in a 32×48 microwell grid serving as a low-res display, but the resulting image is indecipherable due to the lack of grayscale shading. The process is also limited by the time it takes for the bacteria to cycle, resulting in a frame rate of 0.00003 fps, making it impractical for actual gameplay. Nonetheless, the project showcases the lengths to which some will go to turn anything into a theoretically Doom-ready display.