Sounds weird? So it did to me too but the news seems to be true. Science has always thought out of the box to come up with better and improvised technology that will at the end of the day enhance the daily activities of all humans. Thinking on the same lines scientists have been trying hard to attract required tiny particles towards the surface of plates inside the battery.

There have been attempts of using graphene to improve battery performance but using plant eating bacteria for the same purposes is surely touching limits of innovation. People out there in University of Maryland are trying to use Tobacco Mosaic Virus (the so called TMV) so as to generate usable patterns of nano rods on the surface of already existing electrodes.

University of Maryland modified the germ and left it to do what it is best at. The surface was be coated with conductive film which did help in increasing the capacity of the battery by 10 times. Though it might be bit hard (and weird) to understand how a bacteria does its thing without the availability of major resources on which it usually survives but it just seems to be doing well to increase the capacity of our batteries.

[via Engadget]