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Viruses Engineered to Construct Batteries

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the living-lightning dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at MIT have modified the M13 virus to create very small batteries. With the viruses building wires 6 nanometers in diameter, the research team hopes to 'build batteries that range from the size of a grain of rice up to the size of existing hearing-aid batteries.'"

2 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Scary by mOOzilla · · Score: 0, Troll

    So, they're allowed to perform research on this stuff but more restrictions on genome and stem cell research that would be of better benifit?

  2. Call me a luddite... by Theatetus · · Score: 1, Troll

    Is this that good an idea? Is the risk of creating a virus with Cthulhu-knows-what properties that then is accidentally released worth having a cool kind of battery?

    Yes, I know, there are "controls in place". But Monsanto had "controls in place" and swore its terminator plants couldn't cross-polinate anything... guess what? they did. (Monsanto then sued the guy whose fields were infected for patent infringement... wouldn't that be awesome, to get infected with a new ElectroVirus and get sued?)

    Sometimes it seems like a lot of the genetic engineering research we do gets done without acknowledging the possible risks.

    --
    All's true that is mistrusted