Now, Nielsen, who was not involved in the new study, is speculating about how microbes take best advantage of natural conductors around them. "With electric conductors around, it seems very attractive to exchange goods into a common and more liquid currency—electrons," he argues. "To get the full benefit of these mini electrodes, I imagine that the microbes may have developed structures to control the location of them and not just rely on coincidental contact," he adds.

That idea remains to be proved. In the meantime the new discovery suggests that microbes like G. sulfurreducens and T. denitrificans may build electric grids wherever they find themselves. After all, magnetite and other conducting minerals abound on Earth, and such metal-based grids, by allowing the long-distance transfer of electrons, would foster microbial growth. Humans may benefit from bacterial grid-building as well. Understanding how the microbes construct their grids may help us to build a better fuel cell to put that potential to work for us.

3 Comments

1. 1. JamesDavis 04:58 PM 6/4/12

   Okay, get those bacteria on the market, it sounds like they know what they are doing and we do not.

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2. 2. dadster 03:37 PM 6/5/12

   The promises and potentialities of this discovery is tremendous if the technology used by microbes could be successfully exploited for message transmission through the Internet !

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3. 3. jack.123 06:56 PM 6/5/12

   In the not to distant future,microbes will be engeneered to grow just about anything,from shoes,cars,food computers,and houses.The instructions being placed in their DNA will tell them what materials to use and where to place them at an atomic level atom by atom.This technolgy is not as far off as many would like to think.

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