In the past, experts developed calculating machines that worked with three digits, a ternary system, that they hoped would ...

Or a computer, because the teeny tiny components that make up a computer only have two states — on (1) or off (0). At their core, computers are machines that use electrical current to flip switches.

Previous DNA computer models have been able to calculate square roots with up to 4-bit binary numbers, says the team, led by researcher Chunlei Guo, in the paper's abstract.