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interfacing bacteria to silicon chips, NASA-supported
researchers have created a device that can sense almost
anything.    June 10, 2004: Like a canary in a mine, a microbe
can often sense environmental dangers before a human can. It's
easy to see a canary's reaction. But how can you can you tell
what a microbe's feeling? How can you coax a microbe to
communicate?  see captionOne way is to interface it to a silicon
chip.   Right: Glowing colonies of microbes. [More]  Sayler's
group, which includes Tennessee researchers Steve Ripp, Syed
Islam and Ben Blalock, as well as collaborators at JPL and the
Kennedy Space Center, has bioengineered microbes that glow blue-
green in the presence of contaminants. Then they joined those
bacteria to microluminometers--chips designed to measure the
light.  Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery   The system
is surprisingly rugged. Microbes thrive in a