4 ms·

Electrical Power From Humans using Biofuel Cells

21 points by sunsu 15y ago

steboknapp 15y ago
But, lol, surgery is almost a right of passage for retired seniors. If their pace makers didn't go out every five years, what would my grandparents look forward to? :-/
mrleinad 15y ago
Please, can someone ship a copy of The Matrix to those scientists?
DaniFong 15y ago
This is absolutely a breakthrough in implant technology: of course, now the question is, how long will they last in-vivo? Five years? Fuel cells can have a foreshortened lifespan. Also, an idea: perhaps such a battery could also be used for glucose regulation in diabetic patients. The current itself can be a glucose meter, and by opening or closing micro-fluidic channels the machine could regulate blood glucose much more accurately (and healthily) than the spikiness of regular injections.
icegreentea 15y ago
Does anyone know how the body reacts to the charged glucose floating around?
SoftwareMaven 15y ago
One step closer to becoming cyborgs, and it makes me really excited! I wonder if you could soak up extra calories with this, want to lose weight? Charge your iPhone from your blood stream every day.
mike_ivanov 15y ago
How to retire early: implant a lot of these thingies and start producing electricity for sale.
shabble 15y ago
I had an idea some time back about the possibility of isolating Electrocytes[1] into a human biocompatible form, or creating some human alternative that operates on the same principle. I have no idea how plausible the idea is though, and is probably at least 2 or 3 major biological breakthroughs away. Their major benefit, if my understanding is correct, is that you can scale them quite extensively, in a similar fashion to building muscle tissues, to gain more power. This would be invaluable for prosthetic limbs or high-power internal devices like an artificial heart. [1] The specialised cells used by electric eels to generate charge for their shocking ability: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Electric_organ#Electrocytes https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Electric_orga...

21 points by sunsu 15y ago

But, lol, surgery is almost a right of passage for retired seniors. If their pace makers didn't go out every five years, what would my grandparents look forward to? :-/

mrleinad 15y ago

Please, can someone ship a copy of The Matrix to those scientists?

DaniFong 15y ago

This is absolutely a breakthrough in implant technology: of course, now the question is, how long will they last in-vivo? Five years? Fuel cells can have a foreshortened lifespan. Also, an idea: perhaps such a battery could also be used for glucose regulation in diabetic patients. The current itself can be a glucose meter, and by opening or closing micro-fluidic channels the machine could regulate blood glucose much more accurately (and healthily) than the spikiness of regular injections.

icegreentea 15y ago

Does anyone know how the body reacts to the charged glucose floating around?

SoftwareMaven 15y ago

One step closer to becoming cyborgs, and it makes me really excited! I wonder if you could soak up extra calories with this, want to lose weight? Charge your iPhone from your blood stream every day.

mike_ivanov 15y ago

How to retire early: implant a lot of these thingies and start producing electricity for sale.

shabble 15y ago

I had an idea some time back about the possibility of isolating Electrocytes[1] into a human biocompatible form, or creating some human alternative that operates on the same principle. I have no idea how plausible the idea is though, and is probably at least 2 or 3 major biological breakthroughs away. Their major benefit, if my understanding is correct, is that you can scale them quite extensively, in a similar fashion to building muscle tissues, to gain more power. This would be invaluable for prosthetic limbs or high-power internal devices like an artificial heart. [1] The specialised cells used by electric eels to generate charge for their shocking ability: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Electric_organ#Electrocytes https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Electric_orga...