Good News! Still No Cure for Common Cold

Giving new inspiration to sci-fi writers everywhere, researchers in the US have used viruses to generate electricity. Fiction is no stranger to the trope of tiny power sources but, hey, we can always use new ones. Especially something that’s self-replicating in the right host and has the chance to get out of control.

So now, just think, the next time mucus is dripping from your nasal orifices and your skull is filled with cold virus, you might feel too addled to work but you are really a source of limitless power and could take over the world if the viruses in your head were aligned properly.

The reality is “the virus used in the research was an M13 bacteriophage, which attacks bacteria but is benign to humans.”

But who cares? We writers can make something disaster-y and character-challenging out of anything!