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Anonymous Coward writes "Bringing us one step closer to becoming centrally-controlled meatbots, Japanese scientists have developed a device that produces power from the glucose in human blood. Theoretically, this technology (aka "Dracucell") could produce 100W of power. Of course, it can't produce that much power in practice since your body stupidly wastes glucose in maintaining homeostasis. The scientists propose that this devices could be used to power implanted devices. Now how many of you Slashdotters would it take to power my laptop? I'll buy the cola!"
You talk about intelligence, and being as smart as humans.
When you talk about intelligence, you are really refering to _human_ intellegence.
Do you not understand that what is considered to be intelligent behaviour is relative to your environment.
Do you understard that it would be very stupid for
- a cow in its native environment to behave as if its a hippopotamus.
- a human in its native environment to behave as if it were a bird.
- a computer in its native environment to behave as if it were a human.
Why would a computer think like a human, its not a human. It doesnt have a human body, or a human mind, neither does a cow, a bird or a monkey, but it doesnt mean they dont possess intellegence.
We shouldnt be so arrogant to only percieve inteligence as behaviour that mimicks ours.
If we fully understood the human brain, if we could predict behaviour based on the brains current knowledge and its environmental stimulus then would you still consider humans to be inteligent ?
Any technology sufficiently advanced appears like magic, thats what our brain is.
Just because we are masters of our computers doesnt mean computers are incapable of intellegence.
Just because we dont understand our brain doesnt mean it has a magic quality, a soul.
Actually the reaction you describe is not very efficient and only gives a net gain of 2 ATP ( adenosine tri phosphate)per glucose molecule which the bodies tissues use for energy.
Glucose + 2 ADP + 2 NAD+ + 2 Pi -----> 2 Pyruvate + 2 ATP + 2 NADH + 2 H+
Most of the bodies energy is generated by the Krebs ( Citric Acid ) cycle in the mitochondria which generates much more ATP. The glucose-6-phosphate gets converted to pyruvate and enters the krebs cycle. show here This give a net gain of 30 moles atp per 2 moles of pyruvate.
Incidently if you have sugar by products in your urine you should see your doc as you might have diabetes.
Your body produces the bulk of its energy by converting glucose to ATP by a process known as chemiosmosis (electron transport). It takes advantage of the loosly-bound electrons in glucose, and at one point during the reaction the electrons flow along the inner membranes of your cells' mitochondria.
The process the researchers have come up with probably uses the same effect to produce a current. The waste product? Urine. The same thing you'd produce if you metabolized the glucose yourself.
There was an extensive article on this in the Feb 2003 issue of Scientific American. Very interesting stuff. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00073FC E-F36F-1E19-8B3B809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=1&catI D=2
"If it can run on glucose it probably can run on fructose/sucrose/lactose "
Probably not. Your body doesn't burn fructose specifically, it converts it to glucose first. Sucrose is a fructose molecule + a glucose molecule, so it'd have to be broken apart and the fructose converted. Your body does this all automatically, but then the point is moot, since it can (technically) run off starch as well, starch just being a polysacharide of glucose.
So in your body = okay, dumping the nanomachines into a vat of fructose wouldn't work.