Trash those microchips -- fit a jet engine to your laptop and watch it fly. Massachusetts Institute of Technology's research scientists are working on a turbine the size of a shirt button that might soon power portable computers and mobile phones for hours on end. Till now, the research team has made a four-millimetre turbine wheel and the bearings the wheel will sit on. Next comes the compressor and generator. Eventually, all the components will be combine on a chip to make a generator that weighs less than a gram and produces more than 10 watts of electricity.
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