Researcher Sosuke Ito of Tokyo Institute of Technology, in collaboration with Associate Professor Takahiro Sagawa of the University of Tokyo, elucidated the mechanism of information processing when Escherichia coli searches for food.Information processing in the cell is performed at the molecular level.It was pointed out that its work resembled Maxwell's demon, which was conceived in the 19th century.
The demon itself was conceived as completely fictitious, but as research on the cells of living organisms progressed, it became clear that there was a phenomenon like this demon that controlled differently depending on the state of the molecule.For example, Escherichia coli has been found to move in the direction of higher nutrient concentration.It is said that it "records the concentration of surrounding nutrients in the cell at the molecular level" and "determines the direction to go based on the result".This is exactly the same as the demon's function of deciding its behavior according to the state of concentration.A detailed analysis of this function revealed that E. coli processes information very efficiently.
If the mechanism of what kind of information processing organisms perform in cells can be completely elucidated, it will be possible to artificially utilize it.Perhaps the future will come when computers that perform efficient information processing that apply the mechanism of E. coli will appear.