Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years. Yacold also

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That's Y-A-K-U-L-T dot CO.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

This is Scientific American 60-second science. I'm Cynthia Graber. Got a minute?

They're called button cells, coin cells, or watch batteries. By any name, these tiny round batteries pose a choking danger to small kids.

And if a child succeeds in swallowing a button cell, the battery may short circuit in the moist esophageal environment burning the tissue.

A few thousand kids wind up in emergency rooms each year after swallowing a button battery.

But a team of Harvard and MIT researchers that includes prolific inventor Robert Langer

thinks they have a partial solution, a protective coating.

The scientists covered batteries with a material, technically a quantum tunneling composite, in which microparticles of conductive metal are suspended in an insulating layer.

Under most circumstances, including inside of a child, the layer is non-conductive.

But when the material is subjected to high pressure, the micro particles are squeezed close enough together to carry a current.

One such pressurized environment is the typical battery compartment in a small device.

You often have to force the battery into place.

So the same battery that remains inert when swallowed works just fine when it's jammed into its slot in a hearing aid.

The waterproof design would also protect batteries from corrosion in high humidity. The

research is in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Tests with pigs found the coated

batteries to be gentle on the porcine esophagus. Next step, figure out a way to keep kids from putting

the batteries in their mouths in the first place. Can a quantum tunneling composite be made to

taste terrible?

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