Thread-forming virus may become nano-silkworms.

There may shortly come commercially available fabrics composed utterly of genetically engineered viruses tricked into organizing themselves into vast columns. With enormous applications for microelectronics, too. (Thanks Shaun Saunders for the heads up on this ).

The viruses are gene-tweaked into binding with selecting inorganic, metallic and organic materials, and into queueing up into great aligned crystalline threads-- strong enough to weave into fabric and to use in nanoelectronics.

In her paper "Ordering of Quantum Dots Using Genetically Engineered Viruses" Dr. Angela Belcher, professor of materials science and biological engineering at MIT, describes how she learned to spin viruses into fibers. She predicts thread batteries and other weavable electronic devices of all kinds coming on line in the future. "It's not really analogous to anything that's done now," she says in Tehnology Review . "It's about giving totally new kinds of functionalities to fibers."

Note however, that the viri are not 'killed' as part of this process. The threads and fabrics to be spun with these threads will be made up of untold billions of 'living' viruses, suspended in their crystal matrix. Perhaps great tapestries of this material will serve as homes for a completely artificial yet still gene-powered intelligence.