7 ms·
MIT creates glucose fuel cell to power implanted brain-computer interfaces
- mrose 14y agoVery interesting... Only a few short years ago this entire article would have been science fiction. From the article: "The platinum acts as a catalyst, stripping electrons from glucose molecules, similar to how aerobic animal cells (such as our own) strip electrons from glucose with enzymes and oxygen." I wonder, and am curious to learn more about, how much of this process is really understood by modern science.
- shiven 14y agoQuite well understood actually. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_respiration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_respiration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_transport_chain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_transport_chain One of the fundamental biochemical pathways and required reading for entry level life-sciences degree programs.
- lucaspiller 14y agoWhat is the actual chemical reaction going on here?
- carbocation 14y agoReduction of one molecule; oxidation of another. The long version comprises textbooks, but that is the short version.
- stcredzero 14y agoWe can have a better handle on what happens inside a given cell than the complex web of cause and effect that happens between populations of different kinds of cells and their environment. What goes on inside your gut is still more of a mystery than what goes on inside your cells.
- mindcruzer 14y agoFrighteningly well understood. The level of detail in which the electron transport chain is known is astonishing.
- runako 14y agoLink to the original article: http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/glucose-fuel-cell-0612.html http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/glucose-fuel-cell-0612.ht...
- cdooh 14y agoAnyone else read this title and think "Finally they've figured a way to let us have hard drives connected to our brains" or was it just me?:-D The technology is certainly interesting...
- blueprint 14y agoCheck this out http://www.quora.com/Neural-Interfaces/How-did-Stanford-use-bacteria-with-genes-that-relate-incoming-light-to-cell-wall-polarization-in-order-to-build-a-proof-of-concept-neural-interface http://www.quora.com/Neural-Interfaces/How-did-Stanford-use-...
- slurgfest 14y agoFunny that you would say this just as I am dealing with the fallout of a failing drive...
- cdooh 14y agoGood luck with that!! What tools are you using to retrieve the data? Or is it all gone?
- slurgfest 14y agoFor the most part I have backups, configs are largely in git etc. However, some old work is gone since the drive itself is hardly functioning and I'm not paying for professional data recovery. So if you get a hard drive installed in your head, make sure you have the same stuff backed up in git... and make friends with a cyber-dolphin...
- smoyer 14y agoI keep thinking "You will be assimilated" ... and it's simultaneously a scary idea and strangely desirable.
- stcredzero 14y agoI keep thinking "You will be assimilated" You're using the future tense. Sorry, but it's already happened. and it's simultaneously a scary idea and strangely desirable. Again, lots of precedent, and it's historical precedent.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- TheSOB88 14y agoI agree. Wake up, sheeple!
- stcredzero 14y agoI believe you are mistaken in both sentences.
- 4rgento 14y agoI think the glucose present in the cerebrospinal fluid is there for a reason. Probably not to power implants. PS: I'm not a doctor.
- debacle 14y agoHave you ever tasted cerebrospinal fluid? The glucose is definitely there for a reason.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- mindcruzer 14y agoActually, I'm not sure it is. Not for an energy related reason anyway. I'd wager the main reason the the glucose is present is due to osmolarity when the CSF is being created from the blood. Also realize that the CSF has a high turnover rate, something like 3-4 times per day, so that glucose is being replenished readily. I doubt this chip uses much glucose in comparison (plus, they've probably thought of this).
- carbocation 14y agoUsually glucose is transported, as it doesn't freely pass through membranes. I believe the same is true for the glucose in the csf.
- mindcruzer 14y agoYup, my point was that the glucose may be moved into the CSF in order to favor the movement of water in that direction.
- tocomment 14y agoCould this be scaled up and used for weight loss?
- daeken 14y agoBy what mechanism? Capturing and stripping the glucose before it's digested naturally? Seems a bit roundabout since the weight we want to lose (primarily fat) is really just an energy store in the body in the first place.
- debacle 14y agoAn artificial means of controlling blood sugar would alleviate the insulin cycle and prevent the body from storing blood sugar as fat.
- runhomequick 14y agoOr you could just quit eating so much sugar and other carbohydrates and do the same thing. There is no actual need for dietary carbohydrates.
- boboblong 14y agoWhy don't you quit reading Hacker News? There's no need for it. In fact, there's no need for using the Internet at all. Hell, why are you even on a computer? All you really need is a warm fur coat and a hatchet. What are you, some kind of hedonist?
- sp332 14y agoThat only works if your extra calories come from glucose intake. It wouldn't help for complex carbs, fat, or protein.
- debacle 14y agoYour extra calories always wind up as glucose in your blood sugar.
- jostmey 14y agoThese researchers are helping to remove one of the big problems with BMI chips - the wire protruding out of the head. But these BMI chips still suffer from one other major problem. Over the course of a few months to a few years, scar tissue will start to grow around the chips. This tissue not only interferes with the electrodes on the chip, but also endangers the living tissue around the chip. The chips eventually have to be removed.
- debacle 14y agoThat's not necessarily true, depending on how the chips are implanted. We've been putting chunks of metal into people for 80 years and have gotten pretty good at it.
- hermannj314 14y agoForget a brain implant. Can a device that lives on glucose help me lose weight?
- rogerbinns 14y agoOr even just manage blood sugar levels. It would be an immense help to the folks with type 2 diabetes.
- sp332 14y agoThere are already small devices that regulate insulin levels. How would this improve on those?
- natrius 14y agoInsulin causes blood sugar to be deposited as fat. A fuel cell causes blood sugar to be turned into electricity, and eventually some combination of work and heat, which could be far more desirable than fat.
- rogerbinns 14y agoType 2 diabetics have the issue where body parts become increasingly "deaf" to insulin. This keeps blood sugar levels higher for longer periods of time.
- MBlume 14y agoMy first thought was "Does this mean if I want a BCI, I'll have to start eating sugar again?"
- sp332 14y agoYour body uses glucose as fuel. You can generate it from other kinds of fuel sources, but unless you're in a diabetic coma, I guarantee your body has plenty of glucose in it.
- tomp 14y agoWow... My immediate idea is exactly the oposite from the one proposed in the article: Have robots that can "live" by eating "food"! Imagine a robot, say a "spider" or a "mouse", that roams around a city, collecting food (and has a form of a "stomach", similar to say the one that cows have, where there are bacteria, dissolving food and producing glucose), and it can use that glucose to generate electricity, indefinitely... An interesting idea!
- TheSOB88 14y agoBacteria actually do a lot of the digestion in a human as well.
- dcreemer 14y agoThis is very interesting -- my son uses cochlear implants, which currently use external batteries and induction to provide power to the internal components. I wonder if there is enough power available to enable fully implantable hearing?