It takes the author to the end of the piece to admit that no, in fact, they did not build a computer using swarms of crabs. Right after he admits it's false he, he asserts it is true again...really...link baity bad writing for an MIT blog.
"To be fair, the results were mixed. While Gunji and co found they could build a decent OR gate using soldier crabs, their AND-gate was much less reliable.
However, it's early days and they say it may be possible to produce better results by making conditions inside the computer more crab-friendly. (No crabs were harmed in the making of their computer, say Gunji and co.)
So there you have it--a computer in which the information carriers are swarming balls of soldier crabs."
[+] [-] richardk|14 years ago|reply
Still, building logic gates using crabs, very good. :)
[+] [-] wdewind|14 years ago|reply
"To be fair, the results were mixed. While Gunji and co found they could build a decent OR gate using soldier crabs, their AND-gate was much less reliable.
However, it's early days and they say it may be possible to produce better results by making conditions inside the computer more crab-friendly. (No crabs were harmed in the making of their computer, say Gunji and co.)
So there you have it--a computer in which the information carriers are swarming balls of soldier crabs."
[+] [-] Tichy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noonespecial|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] betawolf33|14 years ago|reply
Eh? Is this saying that ordinary computers are eight orders of magnitude more energy-inefficient than the maximum possble inefficiency?
Oh, wait, they mean the other possibility.
Also, as others mention, they only build two gates, and one of them doesn't work very well.
[+] [-] dsrguru|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lolcraft|14 years ago|reply