GEN-ERIC News

Angela Belcher leans in to watch as a machine presses down slowly on the plunger of a syringe, injecting a billion harmless viruses into a clear liquid. Instead of diffusing into the solution as they escape the needle, the viruses cling together, forming a wispy white fiber that’s several centimeters long and about as strong as a strand of nylon. A gradu­ate student, Chung-Yi Chiang, fishes it out with a pair of tweezers. Then he holds it up to an ultra­violet light, and the fiber begins to glow bright red. In producing this novel fiber, the researchers have demonstrated a completely new way of making nanomaterials, one that uses viruses as microscopic building blocks. Belcher, a professor of materials science and biological engineering at MIT, says the approach has two main advantages. First, in high concentrations the viruses tend to organize themselves, lining up side by side to form an orderly pattern. Second, the viruses can be genetically engineered to bind to and organize inorganic materials such as those used in battery electrodes, transistors, and solar cells. The programmed viruses coat themselves with the materials and then, by aligning with other viruses, assemble into crystalline structures useful for making high-­performance devices.

Normally when the topic of pollution, consumption, and alternative fuels comes up, most people are talking about automobiles. We’ll talk about the Toyota Prius, perhaps, and the Chevy Volt. Not today. Not in Korea. In an effort to go green, Samsung Electro-Mechanics is working on a micro-fuel cell and hydrogen generator for mobile devices like cell phones. The kicker is that it runs completely on water. The generator has already been developed, it seems, and as they iron out the kinks and improve the system, they hope to launch a mobile phone powered by water some time in 2010.

Scientists have figured out a way to trick plants into doing the dirty work of environmental cleanup, US and British researchers reported on Monday. Researchers at the University of Washington have genetically altered poplar trees to pull toxins out of contaminated ground water, offering a cost-effective way of cleaning up environmental pollutants. A group of British researchers, meanwhile, has developed genetically altered plants that can clean residues of military explosives from the environment. “Our work is in the beginning stages, but it holds great promise,” said Sharon Doty, an assistant professor of forest resources at the University of Washington, whose study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it.”