"It's like an electric nanoforest," says the researcher.

One of the inevitabilities of life – along with humor and paradox – is change. Seasons change, people will be born and die, and grass – like other foliage on Earth – will continue to grow. As a result, it will need to be clipped. But what if the clippings could be used for more than just fertilizer or compost?

According to MIT researcher Andreas Mershin, they can. In fact, the scientist believes that within a few years, all one will need to do to start producing immediate electricity is stir some grass clippings into a bag of cheap chemicals and paint them onto a roof. Granted, the process is a bit more complicated than he makes it sound, but it's easy enough to comprehend.

Think back to your high school biology days when you learned about photosynthesis, the process in which plants turn sunlight into energy. The MIT researcher developed a process which extracts the photosynthesizing molecules, called photosystem I, from plant matter.

Because photosystem I contains chlorophyll, the protein that converts photons into a flow of electrons, the molecules can be stabilized and spread on a glass substrate that is covered in a forest of zinc oxide nanowire and titanium dioxide "sponges." ExtremeTech relays that when the sun shines on the mixture, both the titanium dioxide and the new material absorb light and turn it into electricity. The nanowires then carry the electricity away.