The terms "nanowire" and "UC Irvine" gave me deja vu. So I decided to go back to a wikipedia Wikipedia article on "nanowire", which I recently read.

Wonderful plagiarism. I found the below link from the Wikipedia article.

https://phys.org/news/2016-04-chemists-battery-technology-off-the-charts-capacity.html

Almost the same thing. It was written in April 20, 2016.

>The researchers think the goo plasticizes the metal oxide in the battery and gives it flexibility, preventing cracking.
>
>"The coated electrode holds its shape much better, making it a more reliable option," Thai said. "This research proves that a nanowire-based battery electrode can have a long lifetime and that we can make these kinds of batteries a reality."

Both from the linked article and the phys.org link.