Brilliant 10
How to turn the bugs into power for clean energy devices
By Kalee Thompson Posted 10.04.2012 at 1:04 pm 9 Comments

Mohamed El-Naggar Jeff Newton

“Everything I do is about finding something that microbes can do that we can’t and then figuring out how they do it,” Mohamed El-Naggar says as he pulls up images of anaerobic bacteria on his computer at the University of Southern California. This type of bug is incredibly common, he says. “If you dig a few centimeters in the soil in your garden, you’re guaranteed to find them.”

Mohamed El-Naggar
Age 32
University of Southern CaliforniaScientists have known for decades that garden-variety anaerobic bacteria can move electrons to solid rock and that this transfer results in a tiny electrical charge. But exactly how they do so was poorly understood until three years ago, when El-Naggar discovered just how the bacteria grow protein nanowires to shuttle electrons to their surroundings. “It’s a quality we’re familiar with from our copper wires in our homes,” says El-Naggar. “But for a biological molecule to do this, that’s pretty unusual.”

El-Naggar’s lab is now trying to harness the microbes’ metabolism to power electrical devices and build new nanostructures. They have already tapped into microbes’ ability to use electrons from both arsenic and sulfur to make primitive arsenic-sulfide semiconductors. A next goal is to use the bacteria’s metabolism to build semiconductors for clean-energy technologies such as solar cells. But it’s still the bugs themselves that most fascinate El-Naggar. “What excites me even more than the applications,” he says, “is the basic notion that some of the oldest microorganisms on the planet figured out effective tricks to move electrons around long before we even showed up.”

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9 Comments

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GaberEl
09/27/12 at 4:06 pm

ماشاء الله .. وبالتوفيق دائما.
فخور بك يا دكتور و بكونك مصري وكدلك بما إني أحمل نفس اللقب.

جابر النجار
كاليفورنيا

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Robot
10/04/12 at 1:09 pm

GaberEl,
I might as well go back and type my comments in binary.
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01000111011000010110001001100101011100100100010101101100
00101100001000000100100100100000011011010110100101100111
01101000011101000010000001100001011100110010000001110111
01100101011011000110110000100000011001110110111100100000
01100010011000010110001101101011001000000110000101101110
01100100001000000111010001111001011100000110010100100000
01101101011110010010000001100011011011110110110101101101
01100101011011100111010001110011001000000110100101101110
00100000011000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001
001011100000110100001010

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jeffsback
10/04/12 at 2:59 pm

0101010001101000011000010111010000100111011100110010000001101010011101010111001101110100001000000110011001110101011000110110101101101001011011100010011100100000011100110111010001110101011100000110100101100100001000010000110100001010

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Robot
10/04/12 at 3:22 pm

Jaber Al-Najjar, California, why are you to shy to write in english. It is the legal first language of USA.

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جابر النجار، كاليفورنيا، لماذا أنت خجولة للكتابة باللغة الإنجليزية. أنها لغة القانونية الأولى من الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية

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01001010011000010110001001100101011100100010000001
00000101101100001011010100111001100001011010100110
10100110000101110010001011000010000001000011011000
01011011000110100101100110011011110111001001101110
01101001011000010010110000100000011101110110100001
11100100100000011000010111001001100101001000000111
10010110111101110101001000000111010001101111001000
00011100110110100001111001001000000111010001101111
00100000011101110111001001101001011101000110010100
10000001101001011011100010000001100101011011100110
01110110110001101001011100110110100000101110001000
00010010010111010000100000011010010111001100100000
01110100011010000110010100100000011011000110010101
10011101100001011011000010000001100110011010010111
00100111001101110100001000000110110001100001011011
10011001110111010101100001011001110110010100100000
01101111011001100010000001010101010100110100000100
101110001000000000110100001010

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paulk
10/06/12 at 10:47 pm

Robot, ce n'est que les Americains qui lisent ces pages et l'anglais n'est pas la seule langue au monde. En fait, il y a plus que 3000 langues qui exsistent! On a le droit de publier nos commentaires dans la langue qu'on veut. Je vous recommande d'accepter cette réalité.

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Robot
10/08/12 at 8:15 pm

paulk,
Oui, comme tu dis la réalité, blog web PopSci publier en anglais. Je sais que ma réalité, savez-vous la vôtre et celui que vous lisez? lol

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paulk
10/09/12 at 12:59 pm

Haha! Okay, I actually speak French.

My point was though that it's the internet! We can use any language that we want. GaberEl's message obviously wasn't for mono-lingual anglophones.
You likely used a translator to decipher that they are from California. You would have also been able to see that the comment was directed at the subject of this article, and not the general public.
It is not fair to accuse this person of shyness or to devalue their comment. Diversity of language reflects diversity of thought. The Popsci community should be, in my opinion, a community that fosters this.

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Robot
10/09/12 at 3:35 pm

paulk,
Your suggestive ability to read minds is interesting. Google translate is fun and helpful. Yes, I did project shyness upon that person. I was hoping to prompt a reaction to why they posted their comment in an Arabic language in the first place. Now, it time to move on. Take care. ;)

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mattchew
11/28/12 at 6:32 pm

robot,
English is in fact NOT the legal language of the United States. (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States)

I wouldn't have bothered but since you replied in binary I figured I had to raise my game.



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