Bacteria Can Build Nanowires

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @10:25PM from the everyone's-favorite-buzzword dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have discovered that under certain conditions, some very common bacteria can form nanowires. These bacteria were able to produce nanowires as small as 10 nanometers in diameter, but which can reach hundreds of microns in length. What is interesting here is that these nanowires are electrically conductive ones. This means that bacteria could be used to build microbial fuel cells or bacteria-powered batteries. As one researcher said, 'Earth appears to be hard-wired.'"

1 of 94 comments (clear)

Re:Genetic algorithms' hardware analogue? by kjorn · 2006-07-11 23:43 · Score: 0, Troll

Modded INTERESTING?!

WTF! How the hell would this work? Bacteria could 'somehow' evolve to make better machines. Hm. Yeh. Right.

Take a look at the timescale of evolution, then take a decient engineer and see how fast they build and prototype a product (HINT: it doesn't take millions of years to make a new, better iPod)

And I had fucking mod points, but there isn't an 'idiotic' mod.