# AE 1436 - 5-Minute News: Why Do These Computers Need To Be Fed?

An episode of [Aussie English](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1089059076), 20 Sep 2026, 5:32.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2011718/episodes/19820010-ae-1436-5-minute-news-why-do-these-computers-need-to-be-fed.mp3

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## Transcript

[0:02] SPEAKER_00: G'day guys, Pete here from Ozzy English.
[0:05] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this episode of 5 Minute News.
[0:07] SPEAKER_00: So the goal here is to cover a recent news story in around 5 minutes, okay?
[0:12] SPEAKER_00: So let's get into it.
[0:18] SPEAKER_00: Imagine walking into a data center full of computers and being told something pretty strange.
[0:25] SPEAKER_00: These computers don't just need electricity, part of them needs to be fed.
[0:30] SPEAKER_00: The living cells inside them need fresh nutrients every three days.
[0:35] SPEAKER_00: There's even a system supplying gases like oxygen and carbon dioxide.
[0:40] SPEAKER_00: So why on earth would a computer need food and oxygen?
[0:45] SPEAKER_00: Well, because part of it is alive.
[0:48] SPEAKER_00: Inside each machine are around 200,000 living human neurons, the cells in your brain and nervous system that send and receive information.
[0:58] SPEAKER_00: Now just to be clear, scientists haven't taken pieces of someone's brain and put them inside a computer.
[1:05] SPEAKER_00: These are human neurons grown in a lab from other human cells.
[1:10] SPEAKER_00: And the whole computer isn't alive either.
[1:12] SPEAKER_00: It's still a machine.
[1:14] SPEAKER_00: It's the neurons inside it that are living cells.
[1:17] SPEAKER_00: Which raises another pretty obvious question.
[1:20] SPEAKER_00: What are two hundred thousand human neurons actually doing inside a computer?
[1:25] SPEAKER_00: Well, the neurons are growing on a silicon chip where the biological and electronic parts can communicate with each other.
[1:33] SPEAKER_00: The computer sends tiny electric signals to the neurons.
[1:37] SPEAKER_00: The neurons respond with electrical activity of their own, and the computer can read the response.
[1:43] SPEAKER_00: So information goes in, the neurons respond, and information comes back.
[1:48] SPEAKER_00: Now although that sounds like some kind of crazy science fiction, this idea didn't come out of nowhere.
[1:55] SPEAKER_00: The company behind the technology is Cortical Labs, and it's based in Melbourne.
[2:00] SPEAKER_00: Back in 2022, Cortical Labs and other researchers carried out an experiment called Dishbrain.
[2:07] SPEAKER_00: They connected groups of neurons to a simulated version of Pong, a simple video game where you use a paddle to hit a ball.
[2:16] SPEAKER_00: Electrical signals gave the neurons information about what was happening in the game.
[2:21] SPEAKER_00: Activity from the neurons then affected what happened next.
[2:25] SPEAKER_00: And researchers found that the neurons began changing their activity in response to the game.
[2:31] SPEAKER_00: In other words, they appeared to adapt.
[2:34] SPEAKER_00: Today, Cortical Labs has taken the idea much further.
[2:38] SPEAKER_00: The company is now working with researchers and a data center company in Singapore where a prototype containing 20 biological computers is operating.
[2:49] SPEAKER_00: A prototype is basically an early version that's being tested.
[2:53] SPEAKER_00: And this brings us back to that strange detail we started with, feeding the computers.
[2:59] SPEAKER_00: The neurons need to be kept alive, so they sit in a special liquid containing nutrients.
[3:05] SPEAKER_00: That includes sugar and other substances the cells need to survive.
[3:09] SPEAKER_00: And every three days those nutrients need to be replenished.
[3:13] SPEAKER_00: Which sounds like an enormous amount of effort compared with switching on a normal computer.
[3:18] SPEAKER_00: So why bother?
[3:20] SPEAKER_00: Well, researchers want to know whether living neurons might eventually be useful for certain kinds of computing.
[3:26] SPEAKER_00: And energy is one part of that equation.
[3:29] SPEAKER_00: Researchers hope biological computing could eventually perform some tasks using less energy than normal computer technology.
[3:38] SPEAKER_00: But that's still something they're trying to establish.
[3:41] SPEAKER_00: It hasn't yet been proven that these machines are more energy efficient than normal computers at a large scale.
[3:48] SPEAKER_00: And scale is the next big test.
[3:50] SPEAKER_00: Right now, the Singapore prototype contains 20 units.
[3:55] SPEAKER_00: In the future, the partners are considering expanding that to as many as a thousand.
[4:00] SPEAKER_00: But that would depend on further testing and regulatory approval.
[4:04] SPEAKER_00: So we still don't know how well this technology will scale up, what kinds of tasks it'll actually be used for, or whether it can become commercially practical.
[4:14] SPEAKER_00: And if systems using living human neurons become much more sophisticated in the future, they could also raise some pretty interesting ethical questions.
[4:24] SPEAKER_00: But there's currently no evidence that these computers are conscious or that they think or feel like humans.
[4:30] SPEAKER_00: Right now, they're experimental machines combining something familiar, computer electronics, with something completely different, living human neurons.
[4:40] SPEAKER_00: And that's why these computers have a requirement your laptop definitely doesn't.
[4:45] SPEAKER_00: Every few days, someone has to make sure the living part of the machine gets fed.
[4:51] SPEAKER_00: And one useful expression from today's story is why bother?
[4:56] SPEAKER_00: We use why bother when we're asking why something is worth the time or effort.
[5:01] SPEAKER_00: For example, the shops close in five minutes.
[5:05] SPEAKER_00: Why bother going now?
[5:07] SPEAKER_00: Or like in today's story, normal computers already work incredibly well.
[5:12] SPEAKER_00: So why bother building biological ones?
[5:14] SPEAKER_00: Anyway, thanks for joining me for this episode.
[5:17] SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed it, and I'll see you in the next one.

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