Currently it takes about 9 to 10 hours of computer time to simulate a single division of the smallest cell — about the same time the cell takes to divide in its natural environment.

So, it's a realtime simulation! Cool, although wholly incidental.

It's hard to tell from the article exactly how fine-grained the simulation actually was. Was it actually at the level of tracking individual molecules, or did each "cell object" just keep track of, e.g., concentrations of different types of molecules?

Also, I wonder if this will have any long-term impact on things like the Open Worm project ( www.openworm.org ).