News and Publications - Research Highlight
Live Wires
Scanning electron microscopic images (left column) of how different bacteria can be made to sprout nanowires to pass electrons. The scanning tunneling microscopic images at right of individual nanowires confirm that they are conducting electricity. (A, B: a strain of the photosynthetic Synechocystis; and C, D: a fermenting strain, Pelotomaculum thermopropionicum).
A microbiologist discovers our planet is hard-wired with electricity-producing bacteria
PNNL microbiologist Yuri Gorby, discovers an electricity-producing bacteria. Gorby discovered that that a microbe which transforms toxic metals can sprout tiny electrically conductive wires from its cell membrane, he reasoned this anatomical oddity and its metal-changing physiology must be related. A series of experiments demonstrated that induced nanowires in a variety of bacteria were electrically conductive.
Read more about this electrifying research see PNNL's news release, "Live Wires."
Learn more about this and other biological research being conducted by scientists in PNNL's Biological Sciences Division.