Viruses build small batteries

BOFFINS at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have worked out a way to make viruses, which would otherwise have nothing to do, other than make people sick, more productive members of society.

The microscopic make work scheme has managed to get the viruses away from their televisions to make the wires which can be used in minuscule lithium ion battery electrodes.

The boffins used the M13 virus which they say is a simple and easily manipulated virus. Normally these traits would lead to a life of crime we would have thought.

According to Nature magazine, you modify the M13 virus' genes so its outside layer binds with certain metal ions, cover it with cobalt chloride and add a bit of gold. Then when the virus replicates, it makes more copies of the wires in orderly layers. Each virus, and thus each wire, is only six manometers in diameter, and 880 manometers long, the researchers said.

It is not so much the project, as the sense of worth it gives the virus to do something more significant with their lives we guess.

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