New research out of MIT has deciphered part of the bacterial communication network, and could allow scientists to engineer bacteria that exhibit novel behavior such as glowing when they detect the presence of a pollutant.

The communication pathways in bacteria share common enzymes, yet they are still able to communicate without any interference or “crosstalk.” The MIT scientists were able solve this problem, and even program their own bacterial communication pathways, by finding patterns of amino acid co-evolution.