Gene-engineered viruses build a better battery

[steven johnson]

I'v heard of DNA doing computing but viruses building batteries is new to me.

WASHINGTON, Apr. 3, 2009 (Reuters) — Researchers who have trained a tiny virus to do their bidding said on Thursday they made it build a more efficient and powerful lithium battery.

They changed two genes in the virus, called M13, and got it to do two things: build a shell made out of a compound called iron phosphate, and then attach to a carbon nanotube to make a powerful and tiny electrode.
Such an electrode could conceivably make more powerful memory devices such as MP3 players or cellular telephones, and are far more environmentally friendly than current battery technologies, said Angela Belcher, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology materials scientist who led the research.

"It has some of the same capacity and energy power performance as the best commercially available state-of-the-art batteries," Belcher said in a telephone interview.

"We could run an iPod on it for about three times as long as current iPod batteries. If we really scale it, it would be used in a car," she added. Such scaling is not even close, Belcher cautioned.

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre5317a1-us-batteries-viruses/

[Posteritatis]

1. Well, that's about seventeen different kinds of awesome

Of course, folks will still see the V word and have kittens..

[lfairban]

2. These are not exactly new, . . .

. . . A123 Systems has been manufacturing them for a while. Their biggest client is DeWalt, makers of Power Tools. (Google search)

They have e-bikers absolutely drooling. Here is a video of an A123 powered electric dragster.


Cute girl.

[backtoblue]

3. I remember my microbiology professor

being so creeped out about the idea of viruses being "manufactured" that he actually twitched when the notion was discussed in class. I was under the assumption that a virus, though not "alive", had to have living cells to continue growth and re-program those living cells. I've read that scientists were trying to fight cancer with RNA structures, but I am not sure I fully understand a virus. Please don't be offended by my lack of knowledge on the issue though I am very interested on the subject