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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!"
Overclock Your Body NOW! Drink UBER-BLOOD(TM) XP!!
fp btw.
Homestarrunner.net -- It's Dot Com!
Two cows:
JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowikimon and market them worldwide.
"'Cause I'm as freeee aaaaasssssss aaaaaaaaaa biiiiiiirrrrrrrrr nnnnnn." -Klick!
Callously, he eyeballs the passanger next to him. He thinks, "Kinda short, but chubby... About 11 Pints."
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
has you.
This actually is kinda neat. If it can run on glucose it probably can run on fructose/sucrose/lactose and a lot of other sugars..
This of course brings back bad memories of Biology and the "Citric acid Cycle" and ATP..
Dr Kazuo Eda, heading the research, said: "It is like the metabolism of food. Human bodies can process glucose and obtain energy. When glucose is oxidised, electrons can be obtained."
IANAB (I am not a biologist), but if the process our bodies use is different from how this devices creates electricity, isn't there a different waste product? Or can our bodies still use rusty glucose? Or is oxidized glucose harmless waste?
I guess we just need to combine this technology with a form of fusion, and we're really in for it. Now drink your power aid.
Mirror
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
...a bunch of scientists made a realistic virtual world which could be powered by humans hooked on to devices that could produce electricity from the human body. And in other news....agents are looking for a couple of anarchists called morpheus and neo.
:P
ducks
Fight Spammers!
Want to burn calories while sitting in front of your computer at work? How about shedding those extra pounds while powering your TV at the same time?
This way people will get an increased metabolism (since some of your sugars are being converted into energy for non-local entities), and they will be able to reduce the number of batteries and other power sources needed.
Just wait till the come out with some nano-bots that run off this process and will scrub the plaque off your arterial walls. That would be the killer app.
MMORPG fan-boy? Prove your worth
My homo-status is NONE of your business.
Think about it. Burning extra glucose means it cannot be stored as fat or what not.
:-)
Kinda also revives the coppertop thingy from the matrix though...
What they really need is an implant that looks like a wall outlet so I can plug my discman into it
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Give me an implant that uses electricity to create glucose, so that I can plug myself into the wall and not have to stop to eat during those long coding sessions.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Would the morbidly obese qualify for US Department of Energy rebates?
Is creativity nothing more then a very basic function of an advanced brain? If we can develop such analytical adept brains, why can't another organism given time? Why can't we create one?
Even certain birds can solve puzzles using techniques that researchers never included in the equation. Nothing suggests that the human brain can accomplish tasks that we could never program a computer to do. The ideal of a "soul" is actually fable/fiction/pure speculation, and does not deserve to be included in a scientific debate.
Just my two cents.
You know, some fly-by-night internet "entrepreneur" is going to spin a tale about how this pioneering new technology can help you increase the size of your penis. You watch.
Well, all the Matrix jokes aside, this does have some potentially excellent applications. I remember the first time I heard someone talking about pacemakers and how the batteries in them wear out. I asked the obvious question, "How do they replace them?"
It involves surgery. YIKES! Granted, it is probably minor surgery compared to getting the thing put in there to begin with, but knowing it was powered by your own blood would surely be a welcome change to these folks.
I mean if you think replacing the battery on your motherboard is a pain, think of doing it on an outpatient basis.
"Contrarily the lookaside buffer might not be the panacea... "
There was an interesting article on genetic algorithms in popular science or popular mechanics a few years ago (circa 1998 or so I think).
Anyway, the specific application being developed was designing an FPGA circuit to detect whether or not a tone (of a specific frequency) was being played. Genetic algorithms were being used to "evolve" circuit designs on a computer, then upload them to the FPGA.
It ended up being the case that the final design used far less gates than any human could reasonably design. And, none of the human EE's could understand how it was done at first.
After analysis, it was shown that the evolved design was using subtle interplay between different parts, and that analog effects from gates next to each other were affecting the results, etc... - all things that an engineer would not consider. (In fact, not even a good thing to consider because it wouldn't work on other FPGAs, even of the same model number, because of the subtleties of the analog interaction).
But, the point is that the problem was solved by a computer program, in a much more efficient (and certainly, "creative" and "outside the box") way than humans would.
Also, note that the humans couldn't understand at first (and took quite some time to understand) a relatively uncomplex system (a few handfuls of logic gates)...
If we assemble systems with orders of magnitude more complexity (millions of gates), operating in similiar ways, there is no way a human will understand it. At this point, it will "come up with" solutions to problems, and there will be no way for a human to understand how it is coming up with these.
At that point, how could you argue that the systems (computer vs human mind) were different, or that one were better than the other, if they were each solving obscure problems, and we didn't understand either?
"Ahhh, Gordon, good to see you. We've found a way to keep your HEV charged, but you'll find you need the cola machines more."
www.eFax.com are spammers
Could be used as a source of energy for implantable pacemakers and defibrillators, with the battery as a backup.
You are arguing that the brain is more than the sum of its synapses. This is one of the core questions in the fields of psychology and AI, and is being pursued by the top minds in each field. We will probably not know the answer until we can simulate the human brain and see what happens.
To back up your argument, you should probably know what the soul is and how it interacts with the physical brain, otherwise how can you say it's not a behavior of the brain?
There are those who mod thier cases and those who mod their bodies... but the lines are blurring. Soon people will be buying LED's and Dracucells to implant under their skin. Just think... You could implant a matrix of LED's in your back to operate like an animated billboard! Who will be the first beach-bum to add a cellular uplink so they can sell ad-space online?
"Sir, are you classified at human"
"Negative, I am a meat popsicle"
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
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.
This is definitely not an area where anyone would want a killer app!
Well, now that I think about it, just not for oneself... >:]
--------
If I can own an idea, does that mean I can legally claim some portion of your soul once I tell you that idea? Or even if you just come up with it on your own? Heck, who needs contracts in blood... (except the nanobots now)
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
1. Have some sort of actual device sticking out of the body. This is bad, because it breaches the skin, our natural defensive screen, and such things tend to become very easily infected.
2. Surgery to replace cells. Again, any surgery at all is going to be both expensive and risk prone.
More recently, a third option has become available: having fully implanted power system that can be recharged wirelessly, via em radiation of some kind (you can google for it). This is a big gain, because it allows devices that are more power hungry while still maintaining the benefits of not breaching the skin and not needing frequent operations. But it still requires people to remember and have access to the appropriate charging device consistantly. If for any reason some one forgets or can't recharge, the device may shut down, sometimes with fatal results. So having a way to remove one more step for powering these things should really help improve the quality of life for a lot of people today.
Of course, personally I find this to be a very exciting development for future things as well. When we get to the point of having more optional implants, for things like boosting hearing or vision, a way to power them will be necessary, and if the power requirements are low, then this system would be perfect. Ultimately, widespread adoption of anything, from an OS to a vehicle, is all about making it as easy and intuitive for end users as possible. There is a lot of interesting stuff going on for advanced things like brain-computer interfaces, and people who are interested should look around, as the state of the art has advanced a great deal in the past 5 years. Here are a few links for the curious, and much more can be found with google, of course:
Graz University of Technology
Standford/DVA Neural Interface Project
Beyond the Big Barrier(lighter, intro type stuff)
News Group:
sci.med.psychobiology
Have you ever heard of Cybernetic Poet? Or any of the music composing artificial intelligences? They regularly produce art which human judges mistake for man-made. Sure, it's not 100% indistiguishable yet, but it appears that with more processing power comes more 'correct' output. You are showing your carbon-bias. Your brain is really no more than a neural net itself (ok, it might have some quantum computing ability,but that is far from accepted fact). It just happens to be more powerful than artificial neural nets we can put together now. And, did you know (speaking of souls) that there is an area of the brain, that when stimulated electrically, causes the person in question to feel like they are having a religious experience? This goes a long way to say that artificial intelligences might well be able to experience the same things we do, if made sufficiently complicated.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
imagine 50-60W worth of LEDs... drink the Mountain Dew and glow green, start to run out of sugar and you'd glow red.. people could start eating when they changed color instead of when they were hungry
At least the war on the environment is going well
This one has some more actual research, as well as a lot more links and citations.
I don't know about you, but I don't consider the maintenance of homeostasis in my body to be a waste of glucose.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Scientists at Matsushita's Nanotechnology Research Laboratory in Japan are developing a power generator that uses blood to produce electricity. It emulates the process the body uses to convert food into energy. The scientists say the "bio-nano" generator could be used to run devices embedded in the body, or sugar-fed robots. Dr. Kazuo Eda, who heads the research, says bio-nano fuel cells are the next step for researchers after generators powered by hydrogen, natural gas and methanol. Hmmm... robots that use humans as batteries -- can The Matrix be far behind? ;)
they'll call it 'operation clone farm freedom'
"Life is great; without it, you'd be dead." -Harmony Korine
when Uncle Fester was able to light that incandescent bulb in his mouth!
Too many I suspect until geek hygiene improves dramatically.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
If they can figure out a way to get a reasonable amount of power without adversely effecting your health, this could be most excellent. I don't think we'll be powering our laptops and cell phones with this, (although a cell phone doesn't suck that much power) but for powering a pacemaker, as someone else suggested, this would be quite useful.
Also of use would be powering the so-called "Soldier of the Future". If our military is indeed to have Deus Ex-esque implants, then this could power them effeciently. I also wonder if this could power night vision goggles...
(-:Stephonovich:-)
"Who needs reincarnation when we've got parallel universes?" -Me
DAMN YOU, HOMEOSTASIS!!!! You ruin all my hopes and dreams!
In other words, on a 2000 kilocalories/day diet...
1 kilowatthour = 860 kilocalories.
2000/860 = 2.3 kilowatt hours
2300 watts-hours/24hours = 96 watts.
Pretty amazing that we humans only run on 96 watts of power.
AccountKiller
the efficiency of conversion of biomass to energy by the human metabolism is very, very, poor. It's not that the oxidation of glucose is so inefficient, it's that there's so much energy spent digesting food to glucose in the first place.
Chickens and rabbits do much better. But then, what kind of a movie would it be if Keanu Reeves was trying to free acres and acres of penned hens? I know, it's about his speed. He'd probably get an Oscar for best supporting actor.
Er, as I was saying, the human body is not a very efficient producer of energy, and the amount of fossil fuels used to produce our food is staggering.
What would be more useful, in terms of the worlds energy demands, is if these guys could *reverse* the process... By putting energy IN to the metabolism, synthesise glucose from H20 and C02. Ideally, the energy source would be good old solar insolation on exposed skin.
So, lay around in the backyard naked for a few hours and save the money you would have had to spend on doughnuts.
This isn't too incredibly speculative, plenty of organisms do this already. The downside is, you'd probably be green, but if everyone was green, it wouldn't be so bad.
Yes, but both of these simulations work using patterns that were derived by analysis of existing works, which by definition always happens after the real creation already took place. Therefore nothing the machines produce is remotely original, they were just programmed to produce something similar by humans, who used their real intelligence to identify patterns that could be codified into a form a machine could understand. People do this too, imitating musical styles of past composers, for example. So in this way machines can be made to be sort of like people, producing new outputs from a fixed set of inputs, creating examples of rules.
The real problem arises in simulating truly creative human activities - for example the creation of an entirely new method of composing music that did not previously exist. Maybe it is an extension of something that existed before, or a synthesis of disparate elements. How do people do things like this? Much of it is based on intuition, interpreting their sensory experiences, and then creating something new. All this is difficult to define in terms of a machine. Even worse is the question, why do people do this? What motivates them? You have to simulate both the how and the why to create a truly creative entity. The machine must be able to create new sets of rules for itself, and must do so not arbitrarily, but for a reason. Aha, you say. The ability and motivation to create new rules must be defined in a sort of meta-rule! Right, all you have to do is understand the operations of conscious thought. But there is a showstopper problem with that notion - you must understand conscious thought from within your own mind, in terms of your thoughts. I reason by analogy here, but isn't there a mathematical principle that says that many systems cannot be proved from within themselves?
Otherwise, you get 'creative' machines as they are now, clever, highly trained parrots. Nothing more.
I will proceed further from 'interesting' into 'making people angry', and inform you all that my opinion is that artificial intelligence that has the creative capacity of humans will never exist. This is because I believe humans were endowed with their creative capacity by their Creator, but not given enough analytical ability to understand their creative abilities well enough to truly replicate them. Maybe if you have the mind of God you can create the mind of a human, but how can you create the mind of God if you cannot even make the mind of a human? I guess this ties into the concept of a soul, the part of our experience that we are aware of, but unable to analyze from within our experience.
The ideal of a "soul" is actually fable/fiction/pure speculation
No, the reality you perceive is your own pure speculation. The fact that you percieve and speculate is incontrivertible proof of your soul/essential existance, proof available to you and no one else. This makes it subjective in any manifestation, and thus is, as you've stated, not subject to the objectivity of science. So you're half right, half wrong. Remember, I think therefor I am. A statement that hasn't been successfully debated since its conception.
After I have received the wisdom of good teaching, I will untiringly teach all people. - The Teachings of Buddha
The ideal of a "soul" is actually fable/fiction/pure speculation, and does not deserve to be included in a scientific debate.
I agree with all you had to say but that last part. Depending on how the soul is being defined, it does have it's rightly place in scientific debate. As self-awareness, consciousness, or personality, the soul is studied and even tested for in the field of psychology.
Breaking a bit from what is conventionally considered science, philosophers debate the nature and existence of the soul to no end. While they have little to no physical phenomena to categorize and study, it would be incorrect to think that more often than not their methods are unscientific.
Of course nothing can help support the idea of the soul as "that which makes humans special and unique in all the universe", other than some artless interpretations of the Bible.
But "pure" science is not without its weaknesses. Take the creation of the universe for instance. How can the methodologies of science alone ever hope to explain the origin of the big bang, when the laws of physics may not have existed in the form that we know them, if at all? We can't simply expect science to explain everything eventually, or we've abandoned science and invented another faith to take it's place.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." ~Albert Einstein
So "The Matrix" was a documentary??!?
Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
Karma: Excellent (In Soviet Russia, karma pimps YOU)
How many airplane pilots does it take to power a laptop?
None. The use of laptops and other portable electronic devices is strictly prohibited during take-off and landing, acording to FAA regulations.
How many MIT students does it take to power a laptop?
Ten. One to blood power it while the others project a more efficient system.
How many Peta members does it take to power a laptop?
Two. One to power it and another to make sure they're not using the blood of any animal.
How many quantum mechanicians does it take to power a laptop ?
They can't. If they know where the power cord is, they cannot locate the plug. (BTW, where in the body would a power plug fit?)
How many Heisenbergs does it take to power a laptop?
If you know the number, you don't know where the laptop is.
How many women does it take to power a laptop?
No way. It's a man's job.
How many amish people does it take to power a laptop?
None. Amish people don't believe in Laptops.
How many Sysadmins does it take to power a laptop?
I'm sorry, that's a hardware issue and we can't help you with it. You'll have to get a hardware tech to power it. Good luck.
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
I don't think so. A relative of mine has just had a pacemaker fitted, and replacement of the device is required every time the Li battery goes flat. You couldn't use induction to charge a pacemaker, because the electronics don't react well to strong magnetic fields, which is a problem if those same electronics have the job of making sure your heart beats at the correct rate (or at all).
Induction is, however, used to communicate with and program the device, since the fields are weak enough not to cause a problem.
"Slashdot | Powered by Blood"
'Nuff said.
"!"
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
I just checked my copy and it's labeled as 'fiction'. Does that help?
>The process the researchers have come up with probably uses the same effect to produce a current.
I wonder if this research can lead into the electricity in -> ATP/Glucose out.
People powering PDAs with a little blood or spit is cute, people running on electricity no farms, no food, no obesity, etc would be revolutionary.
Most importantly, the whole laptop thing is a joke, this is not intended to power a laptop people. If used inside the human body, this would be to power nanomachiens (almost no power drain) and medical implants (which don't draw huge amounts of power either).
Little Brother, watching the watchers
You said "watching movies in the palm of your hand..."
Sorry dude, but I need my palms while watching movies. Ok, I can sacrifice one palm. nevermind.
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
I wonder if this device can purposely "waste" the glucose in the blood to control the blood sugar level? It could help those who are diabetic. Imagine no more need to "control" the blood sugar level, but just eating as much sugar as you want and let the machine lower the blood sugar to the proper level.
:P
I also wonder if it'd be possible to use the same technique to make a person thinner?
I've said it before and I'll say it again - if you plan to simulate the human brain, make sure you simulate the IO in a manner the simulation can access naturally. Nothing would suck more than being a fully functional simulation trapped in a deaf and dumb computer system.
"I think, therefore I am" doesn't mean much if nobody else knows...
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
a relatively uncomplex system (a few handfuls of logic gates)
I wouldn't call that an "uncomplex system", an FPGA usually has several million gates, and complexity is added by the analog effects ! Still, it is WAY less complex than a human brain (with billions of neurons, each of them being connected to thousands of others with somewhat analog connections)
How would this sort of thing work with regards to burning your excess fat? does the human body convert stored fats into glucose before it utilizes them for energy? would plugging a machine like this into you allow you to eat essentially ANYTHING, and the only difference is the amount of power it could syphon off? i'm seeing a massive potential for these devices in the weight loss industry...
Perhaps the answer to the problem of teenagers dropping bricks from motorway and railway bridges is to sue Tetris.
I find that a wench and rack does it for me...
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Would this be another way to manage blood sugar for diabetics?
-soup (GNUrd, Speaker to Machines) "Laugh at yourself- Why should everyone else have all the fun?" -Romanchek's 6th Ru
But that's not how it's actually done: the battery and electronics forrm a single unit, with the only leads being the ones connecting the pacemaker to the heart itself. I'm not medically trained, but I guess there'd be two reasons for this. Firstly, there's not a lot of room in the body for lots of components spaced out all over the place, and not many convenient sites to put things; case-modding to give yourself more room is not an option. Currently, pacemakers are installed under a local anaesthetic through a small incision in the chest; your solution would likely require a more difficult procedure
Secondly, there's always the risk that the pacemaker leads could be dislodged through even normal body movement: patients are instructed not to engage in certain activities (not lifting their arm on the pacemaker's side of the body above the chest, just to name one). Having another wire connecting a string of components just compounds that problem.
The only thing I still can't figure out is how they got Keanu to act!
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
I don't know why they used the idiotic plot device of the Matrix using people as human batteries. It would've been far more believable if they had the plot be that the Matrix was using the extra processing power of people's brains (whether there really is any extra or not in reality) for its own purposes. It would let people use just enough to live in the Matrix and take the rest. Sort of a giant SETI@home type system. Disconnect enough people and you'd have the Matrix singing "Daisy" before long. Plus you could have little story extras like explaining that inspiration and visions in people are actually due to "bad connections" in their heads (and possibly important loopholes into the system?) and that dreams are Matrix background noise.
Maybe the idea of people not using all of their brains would be too realistic.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I wish I had the money to patent these ideas. Instead I will disclose them so the whole world can use them if no one already filed a patent.
This is the cure for diabetes(sp?) as its an insulin replacement. It can keep the bloodstream below a certain glucose level with the greatest of ease, just burning off power doing something dumb (or useful, it doesn't matter). Just implant a device or series of devices that detect gluecose levels, and the device(s) stays idle or working in a low power mode until levels reach a certain level, then they burn off that excess gluecose until the blood is reduced to an optimal level. This is probably controlled by a slightly more complicated algorithm, but this should get the idea out.
It also is a GREAT and I do mean GREAT wieght loss aid. It can use up excess energy that the body takes in sending the body into ketosis, thereby getting the Atkins type diet, while eating whatever you want. There is also studies that show if you eat at "starvation" levels your whole life (when ketosis should be happening rather constantly) you increase your lifespan by 20% or more. Therefore, this is also an anti-aging device while being a near perfect diet.
The diet application does not require going into ketosis. It could just use much of the gluecose, thereby making it as if the person ate a smaller meal.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
This should be improved to use fats and lactose etc from the blood as well. I dont mind driving a small car powered by myself which is powered by Burger King. You get to eat all you can and you get to lose weight while speeding. I think I'll start a trucking company.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky