A team of engineers at MIT has harnessed viruses to make components for a remarkable new kind of battery, half the size of a human cell and far more efficient than your usual AAA.

The researchers used a threadlike virus that had been genetically engineered so that electrically conductive materials, such as cobalt oxide, would bind to its surface. http://louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com Because the long, thin virus has so much surface area relative to its volume, it can pack a lot of charge into a little space. The metal-coated microbe can thus be used to build energy-storage devices with a power density much higher than that of traditional batteries, says Paula Hammond, a self-assembly expert who helped develop the technique. http://louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com

Although the viruses eventually degrade, the metal structure they create [subscription required] remains behind. That structure is strong enough to be transferred and embedded into another surface. So far, the team has succeeded in creating a battery with one virus-built terminal and one conventional terminal, and it is working on a battery with both terminals virus-built. http://louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com

Microbatteries could potentially power all kinds of miniaturized electronics, including tiny medical implants. “This whole idea of building a battery being a heavy, dirty chemical process doesn’t have to exist,” Hammond says. “We can imagine printing batteries onto different surfaces.”