Chemical computer can recognise patterns and perform multiple tasks

A chemical computer made from a network of enzymes can perform a variety of tasks, like measuring temperatures or identifying substances, without needing to be rebuilt each time. This makes it more like an adaptive biological system than a digital circuit, and offers the promise of linking computers with biology. Living organisms contain molecular networks that constantly integrate chemical and physical signals, such as when cells sense nutrients, hormones or temperature changes and adjust to stay alive. For decades, researchers have tried to mimic this in a variety of ways, such as building logic gates from DNA, but most of these artificial systems have been either too simple, too rigid or too difficult to scale. Now, Wilhelm Huck at Radboud University in the Netherlands and his colleagues have taken a different approach.