UVA’s Edward H. Egelman and colleagues used cutting-edge technology to gain a greater understanding of how a bacteria, Geobacter sulfurreducens, conducts electricity.
Scientists at the University of Virginia and elsewhere have made a surprising discovery about how strange bacteria that live in soil and sediment can conduct electricity. The bacteria do so, the researchers determined, through a seamless biological structure never before seen in nature – a structure scientists could co-opt to miniaturize electronics, create powerful-yet-tiny batteries, build pacemakers without wires and develop a host of other medical advances. [Read more]