Living camera uses bacteria to capture 100 megapixel photos
Up until now there's been a slight gap in high-end digital cameras: once your taste for megapixels surpassed the 16 that supposedly make the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II better than film, and the 34 and 39 megapixels from Leaf and Kodak, respectively, your only recourse used to be starting your own country or company to try building a ginormous sensor of your own in the vein of Better Light's 144 megapixel monster or Fermilab's 500 megapixel beast. Well a team of researchers at UCSF, lead by Chris Voigt, may have found a nascent contender for the triple-digit megapixel market. Apparently they have modified E. Coli bacteria to act as together as a de facto photosensitive sensor and produce astounding 100 megapixel-per-square-inch monochrome images. Before you get too excited, besides only being capable of black-and-white photography, this living camera needs four hours to take a photo and only works in red light. Appropriately enough, one of the first pictures taken using these primitive organisms was of the flying spaghetti monster, a character used to mock proponents of intelligent design.