Electricity goes viral

An MIT team has found a way to use a virus to build batteries. The virus, M13 bacteriophage, is attracted to inorganic materials, making it fairly unique among viruses.

The virus is coated with gold and cobalt oxide to transform it into a piece of nanowire. When the viruses are encouraged to grow into a chain, they form a film that carries a negative ionic charge.

The advantage to this kind of battery making is that it eliminates harmful solvents that are used to make traditional batteries.

This is a pretty cool advance, and I wish the MIT team well.

One always has to wonder about the unintended consequences of new technologies, however. What happens when a battery containing a virus is discarded? After the battery's shell breaks down, can the virus escape and take on all the inorganic material in the landfill as a host? Could it mutate?

Yes, I watch too many sci-fi movies.

A perpetual motion car? Show me.

From California comes a new car design that relies solely on alternative energy.

The car would go 155 mph, do zero to 60 in four seconds and cost about $170,000.

Solar cells on its skin would charge the battery in 1.5 hours and after reaching speed-here's where I become skeptical-a set of strategically placed mini wind turbines would recharge the battery, enabling the car to go 200 miles, or about an hour if you're gunning it around a racetrack.

The car, dubbed the Formula AE, is being designed by Rory Handel and Maxx Bricklinas from Beverly Hills, California. Read how the car will use alternative energy here.

Here's a link to RorMaxx's sponsors and affiliates. One of the affiliates is the X Prize Foundation, which seeks "revolution through competition."

Typically, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I'm from Missouri, so RorMaxx will have to show me.