Spinach juices up batteries.

Parents, doctors, and even Popeye have long talked up the powerful properties of spinach. Now, an unlikely group has joined in: researchers seeking to give batteries extra punch. Scientists have found a way to harness the energy that plants use during photosynthesis to extend battery life in cell phones, laptops, and other portable electronic devices. Spinach proved to be ideal for this project because it's cheap and contains lots of chlorophyll--the green pigment that enables plants to convert light into nutrients. When a mixture containing liquefied spinach was sandwiched into a half-inch chip, it produced a small amount of electricity. Stacking the spinach-laden layers could produce a chip capable of giving batteries a boost. This will take a few years to develop, says Shuguang Zhang, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If we can put it on three dimensions," says Zhang, "we can get some use from the juice."