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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.
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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...)
My homo-status is NONE of your business.
AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the band, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.
My sister could probably kiss you for that diabetes idea! That would let her do a lot of things, like hike Europe, without having to worry about her glucose meter running out of batteries somehwere remote or whether she could get more insulin should the need arise (I'm not sure if the storage idea would work though, as insulin can be complex to store/reproduce). I realize that she may never see it in that much of a normal use during her lifetime, but the idea that it could work would certainly ease her worry about passing it on to offspring. It will certainly give her some hope for other diabetics.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
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."
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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.
Too many I suspect until geek hygiene improves dramatically.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
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.
With cows or other large animals, larger devices with more power would be possible. Perhaps a device to summon the cows for round up, or give them a shock if they stray out of bounds.
I am a Statistician. One false move and you are a Statistic
I am a Statistician. One false move and you are a Statistic