Another example of gold's role in the extraordinary is the 'everlasting' battery. When it comes to batteries, the key is their charge-discharge cycles. Today's lithiom-ion batteries typically last about 300-500 charge-discharge cycles, or a few years. In 2016, researcher May Le Thai at the University of California at Irvine accidentally developed a battery that lasted more than 200,000 charge-discharge cycles. This illustration show gold nanowires coated in an electrolyte gel that gradually seeps in to make the wires less fragile and more stable, allowing for longer performance.