Magnetic Bacteria as an electricity source

[athon]

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70882-0.html?tw=wn_index_2

My question; what is a 16 year old doing reading Nature?

Athon

[CapelDodger]

If this is kosher, serious kudos for Kartik Madiraju.

These bugs have to eat to do their thing. If they can eat mashed slugs then even more kudos to Kartik Madiraju. (I hunt and kill slugs by torchlight, it would be so elegant ...)

[Dilb]

I don't understand what he did. The bacteria have tiny magnets in them, making the bacteria part irrelevant. So a small cube of tiny magnets is somehow spun by putting metals at two ends of the cube. How is it spinning? Aparently the bacteria will align themselves with an external magnetic field and move along field lines, but I don't see how he could have used that to generate power continuously.

Also: I read an issue of Nature at 16. Then I decided it was overly technical and went back to New Scientist/Scientific American. But I did get to correct my biology teacher by showing an article on the newly discovered 22nd naturally occurring amino acid.