Viral Batteries: A Case for Evolution?

ICR ^ | April 13, 2009 | Brian Thomas, M.S.

[GodGunsGuts]

Viral Batteries: A Case for Evolution?

by Brian Thomas, M.S.*

Researchers at MIT have invented a “greener” battery with the help of viruses. Three years ago, they engineered a virus that coats itself with material that serves as an anode, a structure within a battery that attracts positive ions. They have now engineered a virus (bacteriophage) that serves as a cathode, which indirectly links to the anode to help make the battery functional. The result is a battery with little impact on the environment.

National Public Radio (NPR) ran a report on its Morning Edition that compared the development of this battery with the processes of evolution, stating that if the lead researcher “didn't like any properties of the electrode, she just tweaked the DNA of the virus that was making it.”1 But does this research actually portray an evolutionary process?...

[GodGunsGuts]

Ping!

[prismsinc]

Frankenscience at a microscopic scale, similar to what Obama plans to do with his foot soldiers

[muawiyah]

Looks like an instance of design.

[truemiester]

I beat ALF (Animal Liberation Front) will bomb thier labs.

Don’t viruses have feelings to?

(no)

[ClearCase_guy]

I just love it when Intelligent men and women in labs are able to Design something cool -- and then they use that as evidence for Evolution.

Talk about seeing what you want to see ...

[RegulatorCountry]

There’s some serious delusion going on, if anyone can look at an engineered virus and see evidence of evolution, as opposed to intelligent design. Maybe, in the spirit of punctuated equilibrium, we’ll be treated to treatises upon assisted evolution? Quite the interesting history in just this past century, as far as human attempts at such assistance. Not sure they want to go there.

[Snickering Hound]

Gotta watch out for that zombie creating side effect.

[OneWingedShark]

>Gotta watch out for that zombie creating side effect.

Indeed, it’s news like this that has people stocking up on guns and ammo. ;)

[mentor2k]

I think the article is talking to the “evolution” of the dry cell battery, not relating it to “evolution” of mankind. Scientists have been using viruses and bacteria to rid the soil and/or ground water of hydrocarbon spills for quite some time now. They’ve just taken the technology to a new level with engineering the viral srains to accept a chemical current.

[RegulatorCountry]

Don’t viruses have feelings too?

Well, according to these researchers, they have preferences, thoughts and intent, so why the heck not?

"... viruses that first coat themselves with iron phosphate, then grab hold of carbon nanotubes to create a network of highly conductive material.” This technology works only “because the viruses recognize and bind specifically to certain materials.”

Feeeeeliiinnngs, whoa whoa whooaa feeeliinnnggs.

[RegulatorCountry]

Quite the freighted term, “evolution,” especially when used by National Public Radio. I somehow doubt NPR used the word in any other context.

[Cedric]

Instead of ushering the masses into their cavernous Intermediate Life Form Fossil museums, housing millions of tangible and undeniable proofs of evolution (as they promised and expected) evos have been reduced to the these absurd abstractions and extrapolations.

It's been a bad century and a half for them.

[atlaw]

Once again, in case you are interested in actually reading (and in case you are under the delusion that postings of ICR articles on FR are actually representative of the science):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/gquery?term=evolution

[Elsiejay]

Employing human intelligence to manipulate the genes of plants and animals is a common practice, and has not a thing to do with genetic alterations resulting by pure chance in an undirected, random fashion.

[Just another Joe]

But when the virus get's out and starts connecting all the batteries in the world -

SKYNET!

[DannyTN]

This is design not evolution. But it also sounds like Morgellons disease. Morgellons and Nanomachines
Morgellons Lab Results
Morgellons

[Nipplemancer]

"It is almost as if Morgellons is in the process of reconstructing people into an entirely different life form; a cyborg-like creature, both biological and machine. As well, with the reports that the Morgellons nanomachines are capable of receiving radio signals, this could indicate that each infected person/system would be able to communicate with other Morgellon sufferers, creating the potential that each person would be like a single brain-cell of a larger, artificial intelligence. " say what?

[DannyTN]

Morgellonborg, you will be assimilated.

Ok, they definitely went overboard there.

[Cedric]

Please take the Honest Evolutionist Test:

Thirty years ago, did you honestly think that evolutionists would still be looking, today, for all those missing links?