WATCH: Pac-Man Faithfully Recreated with Microbes

(Credit: HSN/Adam Bartley lyslagt/Knut J. Meland) It's a microbial blast from the past. Researchers from the University College of Southeast Norway painstakingly recreated the labyrinth from Pac-Man and populated it with real-life Pac-Men and Ghosts — in the form of microscopic organisms. In the maze, which measures less than a millimeter across, euglena and ciliates take on the title character's role, while rotifers act as Ghosts, chasing and eventually eating the Pac-Microbes. Nostalgia aside, the tongue-in-cheek experiment actually functions as a fairly good simulation of the peat and moss environments where these organisms typically live. Unlike the two-dimensional petri dishes where they are usually studied, a 3-dimensional maze recreates the tunnels and pathways where rotifers chase their prey outside of the laboratory, allowing the researchers to study their interactions with greater accuracy. They hope that the universally-recognized structure will help to stir public interest in organisms that are too small ...