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Posted Wed Apr 27 2011: from Massachusetts Institute of Technology via ScienceDaily:
Solar Power Goes Viral: Researchers Use Virus to Improve Solar-Cell Efficiency http://apocadocs.com/s.pl?1303864316
Researchers at MIT have found a way to make significant improvements to the power-conversion efficiency of solar cells by enlisting the services of tiny viruses to perform detailed assembly work at the microscopic level...that's where viruses come to the rescue. Graduate students Xiangnan Dang and Hyunjung Yi -- working with Angela Belcher, the W. M. Keck Professor of Energy, and several other researchers -- found that a genetically engineered version of a virus called M13, which normally infects bacteria, can be used to control the arrangement of the nanotubes on a surface, keeping the tubes separate so they can't short out the circuits, and keeping the tubes apart so they don't clump.
[Read more stories about: efficiency increase, carbon emissions, nanotechnology]

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