By Encoding Messages in Glowing Proteins, Scientists Turn E. Coli Into Invisible Ink
Colorful E. coli via Wikimedia It's an innovation fit for a Cold War spy novel: a means to transmit secret messages via microbe. Dubbed steganography by printed arrays of microbes (yup: SPAM), the technique involves encoding messages in the colors of glowing bacteria, which can be later unlocked with antibiotics. That's not to say this is the first time a secret or hidden message has been encoded into a living molecule. But the method is quite simple, requiring no gene sequencing equipment, microscopes, or other scarce and expensive laboratory gear to extract the coded message. Some simple LEDs and a smartphone would suffice, allowing the recipient to receive the printed microbes through the mail and quickly and easily unlock the message. It works like so: The team took seven strains of common Escherichia coli bacteria and engineered each to glow a different color under the right light via fluorescent proteins. The bacteria...