共用题干 Batteries Built by Viruses
What do chicken pox,the common cold,the flu,and AIDS have in common?They"re all diseases caused by viruses,tiny microorganisms that can pass from person to person. It"s no wonder that when most people think about viruses,finding ways to steer clear of viruses is what"s on people"s minds.
Not everyone runs from the tiny disease carriers,though. In Cambridge,Massachu- setts,scientists have discovered that some viruses can be helpful in an unusual way. They are putting viruses to work,teaching them to build some of the world"s smallest rechargeable batteries.
Viruses and batteries may seem like an unusual pair,but they"re not so strange for engi-neer Angela Beicher,who first came up with the idea. At the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology(MIT)in Cambridge,she and her collaborators bring together different areas of science in new ways.In the case of the virus-built batteries,the scientists combine what they know about biology,technology and production techniques.
Beicher"s team includes Paula Hammond,who helps put together the tiny batteries,and
Yet-Ming Chiang,an expert on how to store energy in the form of a battery.“We"re working on things we traditionally don"t associate with nature，”says Hammond.
Many batteries are already pretty small. You can hold A,C and D batteries in your hand. The coin-like batteries that power watches are often smaller than a penny. However, every year,new electronic devices like personal music players or cell phones get smaller than the year before. As these devices shrink,ordinary batteries won"t be small enough to fit in-side.
The ideal battery will store a lot of energy in a small package. Right now,Belcher"s model battery,a metallic disk completely built by viruses,looks like a regular watch battery. But inside,its components are very small一so tiny you can only see them with a powerful microscope.
How small are these battery parts?To get some idea of the size,pluck one hair from your head. Place your hair on a piece of white paper and try to see how wide your hair is一 pretty thin,right?Although the width of each person"s hair is a bit different,you could probably fit about 10 of these virus-built battery parts,side to side,across one hair. These micro-batteries may change the way we look at viruses. According to the first paragraph,people try to