When you turn on a light at home, the bulb lights up because an electric current has travelled from the breaker box in your home’s electrical system to the outlet the lamp is plugged into, and on through the power cord to provide electrical power to the light so it can glow. If you can imagine this process happening on a very tiny scale, you’ll have some idea about why scientists are excited to discover there is a strain of bacteria that can actually make extremely small wires that conduct electricity. This Geobacter bacteria has been shown to be useful at cleaning up toxic spills, and very recently has been shown to create long, thin nanowires that can send electricity back and forth. This could find lots of applications in engineering and systems biology, but more importantly — it’s really cool!