Biohackers push life to the limits with DIY biology

For the next generation of hackers, micro organisms have become the new hardware and DNA strands the new software

The petri dish spells it out in faint, dark letters: "Ceci n'est pas un E coli." The play on the classic painting has a twist, though: while Magritte insisted his caption was accurate since it wasn't a pipe but an image of one, here, the canvas really is Escherichia coli. Or at least it was, before it was genetically modified for capabilities far beyond its own.

Since E coli's natural habitat - the darkness of the human intestine - doesn't warrant light sensitivity, a sensor is added. Another upgrade instructs the bacteria to excrete an enzyme to stain the dish's agar solution black when hit by light. The image itself is captured through a negative putting only the lit-up bacteria to work - the brighter the light, the darker the spot - and voili: about a day later, a bacterial photograph.