MONTREAL, CANADA, May 12, 2006: 16-year-old high school student has invented a new way of producing electricity by harnessing the brawny power of bacteria. Kartik Madiraju, an 11th-grader from Montreal, was able to generate about half the voltage of a normal AA battery with a fifth of an ounce of naturally occurring magnetic bacteria. And the bacteria kept pumping current for 48 hours nonstop. “No one has ever used magnetic bacteria to produce an electrical current before,” Madiraju said. The experiment is being presented this week at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, an uber-science geek competition in which the chipmaker annually hands out $4 million in prize money to students. Winners will be announced Friday. Magnetotactic or magnetic bacteria have extremely small crystals of magnetite inside their bodies. Only discovered in 1975, these aquatic bacteria are quite common and found in fresh water and saltwater around the world. “I thought the idea was outlandish originally and was one of the most surprised when it worked the very first time,” said John Sheppard, a professor in the Department of Bioresource Engineering at Montreal’s McGill University.
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