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Spinach May Soon Power Mobile Devices
neutron_p writes "For the first time, MIT researchers have incorporated a plant's ability to convert sunlight to energy into a solid-state electronic "spinach sandwich" device that may one day power laptops and cell phones."
The Apple PopiPod, now with Bluto size capacity.
I think I see Pop-eye using their laptops in incredibly effective infomercials now! Will Bluto be using the regular crummy "battery-powered" laptops?
I sell out to The Man every day.
You know, that sounds mighty familiar...
I wonder why they don't use Algae, seems that stuff works extremely well and multiplies fast to prove the point
"Dude, your laptop smells like a swamp!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Based on the recommendations of an Adminal Popeye (ret).... :-)
organic notebook. Does that make it a cyborg?
Hivemind harvest in progress..
You MIT bastards are gonna pay!
Fine just as long as i don't have to eat it.
Awww, my universal power converter doesnt work with this!
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
Once you place some spinach into it, does the screen bulge outwards and show some strength imagery like a steam train or a volcano, a la almost every time Popeye eats the green stuff?
I am the breaker of Chairs!
*waits to hear all the lame Popeye jokes...
Let's just hope that "People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables" doesn't find out.
Sounds like a good use of spinach. God forbid I would actually eat it...
You won't hate yourself in the morning if you don't get up before noon.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...just think what Viagra(tm)could do! It could happen.
This is my signature.
The biologically based solar cells, which convert light into electrical energy, should be efficient and cheap to manufacture, says co-creator Marc Baldo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
Baldo's team isolated a variety of photosynthetic proteins from spinach and sandwiched them between two layers of conducting material. When light was shone on to the tiny cell, an electrical current was generated...
The prototype cells still need a little refinement. At present, they can generate current for up to 21 days; then they give up. So alternatives that last longer are needed.
The cells also convert only about 12% of the absorbed light energy into electricity. Still, the researchers believe that it should be possible to reach 20% efficiency, which is better than typical values for commercial silicon solar cells.
Full here
It may be that more efficient and more durable chloroplasts can be found or made. The evolution of solar power seems to be going in several directions at once. It makes me wonder what experiments are in progress and not reported yet?
CB(*&^%^*)&^
free ipod and free gmail!
You know you live in the 21st century, when your cell phone is better suited to perform photosynthesis than it is to talk to other people.
Huk-kuk-kug-kug-kug... oh...whaddya know there... nows I can call Olive on me spinachk-phone.
(c'mon! someone had to make the reference!)
Gee Wiz! They invented solar panels... Wait a minute....
(eom)
We've been using Olive Oil to create light, now spinache to create power, sadly Bluto isn't a viable power source.
On the other hand, if we could generate some form of alternative fuel out of cheeseburgers we wouldn't have to pay until Tuesday.
If they were motivated by a Nobel prize, or lofty humanitarian goals, the article would read how this invention would help solve the energy crisis, save the environment, cure world hunger, etc..
Of course, they're really after investor dollars. So it's about neat-o stuff for your iPod. Ending homelessness simply has a poor ROI.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
So you're saying we're no longer using ants.
The article in the summary seems to have been /.ed so here is another article I found.
I mean, if this thing is daylight only, as, of course, it must be, since it's converting sunlight to energy, then there will be room for a solid state vegetable sandwich of darkness!
Really, what kind of techie is going to go out into the SUN to use his electronics? Do they know their market at all?
Wonder how it compares in efficiency/durability with a modern solar cell? High efficiency solid state would be damn useful there.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I think it should power vegetarians. That way we won't have to worry about being low on energy when the menu items on offer are carrot sticks and bland salad.
----- Vegans don't send SPAM.
Oddly enough I was thinking about this in the shower this morning. Of course all I was thinking was "Hey I wonder if you could use a plant's ATP producing ability like a battery?" I didn't actually figure out how to do it in the shower, just that it would be cool. This is much more impressive.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Ending homelessness is trivial, but there's no money in it. In fact, it would cost money. Hence, we are not going to end homelessness until/unless our focus leaves money and ends up on actually helping our fellow man. Odds are long, though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The Pop-iPod!
Er... Popeye-pod!
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
First, we have robots that are powered by flies, now we have laptops running off of spinich. Next we'll find a way to use human bodies as power sources. I think there was a movie about that...
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
This is excellent news! We are one step closer to creating artificial photosynthesis, which would be extremely useful both in space and here on earth.
If we had the ability to convert CO2 back into O2, the benefits to mankind as a whole would be astronomical. Not only would we be able to make extended journeys in space, we would also be able to offset some of the environmental issues dirty industry produces.
Alright I've got 10,000 night minutes for my brand new spinich phone! ...unfortunately it doesnt work at night.
Lets make a rule that nothing gets posted until it has a part number, price and ship date. Next it'll be Personal Computers with hard drives. Electronic cameras. Carrying your entire eight track tape collection around in a little box called an iPod.
A little reality here.
Dear mommy, I didn't send you email for a long time because the dog ate the spinach battery of my laptop...
I produce quite a bit of methane gas. Put a turbine on my sphincter after a trip to Taco Bell and I could power an iPod, PDA and PowerBook for 10 to 12 hours.
You could use the leaves for power, and the flower for a speaker. Touch the leaf to turn it on or off.
/home/.nanette/phys/physorg.com/functions_news.php on line 137
SQL Error:
And they must be using one of these to power their server: Warning: mysql_select_db(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me.
Looks like they are running their server on spinach alright...
What an incredibly lame P.C. response to progress. Homelessness is a socio-economic problem, not a scientific one. This same sort of complaint against sciencse/technology has often been heard before, as arguments against the Internet and space exploration. But I never thought I'd hear it on Slashdot. I guess the invasion of the load and clueless is continuing on schedule.
Yeah, maybe I'll loose some karma points here, but I just can't let this sort of whiney idiocy go by without yelling.
I guess my swiss chard laptop is already outdated.
It's possible to make *any* achievement sound trivial by choosing the right words. You call this "using Spinach to power your cell phone" because you're just reading the summary.
Consider that conventional solar cells are among the most toxic devices now made and you've got a new way to avoid dumping horrible chemicals into the environment, a sustainable way to have solar power, and spin-offs of the knowledge to more efficiently reclamate CO2 pollutiona t the production site. How does "the survival of humans on earth" stack up to "ending homelessness"?
Of course, the ways to end homelessness in the long run are drug treatment, education, and job creation. New kinds of cell-phones, and hence more jobs, are the main place you'd use engineers and organic chemists to fix homelessness.
You think the first one will be called Popeye? :)
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
I'm thinking there must be a Popeye joke to be made here, you know, with the spinach and all, but I got nothing.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Fossil fuels and food are all the realms of the animal. Nuclear and antimatter are the future. A recent New Scientist notes that pocket nuclear devices will come soon. Now you're talking many binary orders of magnitude better power.
-I am an elective eunuch.
I am still waiting on the spinach powered car. I mean a laptop is just a luxury right? I bet a horse gets pretty good miles to the spinach....
Well, know I have something to do with spinach aside from making me toss my cookies. Should we start buying up Spinach futures now?
Pocket nuclear devices could be a tough sell. On the other hand, it might provide the genetic diversity we need to evolve as a species.
My first instinct was, "Wait a minute... they want to add a third wheel to solar energy?" We already have silicon solar panels that convert sunlight into energy. So why add something in between? Wouldn't that be less efficient?
The more I researched, though, the more I realized that my initial reaction was somewhat rash. Think about it: if nature already has a time-proven method, why not harness that rather than reinventing the wheel? Especially if the "reinvented" (silicon) method is less efficient.
I found a CNN article from 2 October 2003 where this idea was explained. Back then, less than a year ago, it was estimated that the efficiency would reach 10 percent by the end of 2004. According to one source referenced by another poster, we're already at 12 percent, and now achieving 20 percent is expected! (According to the CNN article, 20 percent is the efficiency of our current silicon solar power.) If the technology continues to develop at this rate, it could become more energy-efficient than silicon and allow for some very cool technology in the not-too-distant future.
(What exactly that technology might be, I'm not too sure. Who wants a disposable cell phone battery when current ones can be recharged in a couple hours? Anyone have any thoughts on how this tech could be best used?)
the JoshMeister on Security
This is a link to a relevant article on the mit servers (the other ones are toasted)
This is completely false. This is not a sig.
Reminds me of TOTL's Spud Server.
Party Time: Excellent
I just remembered in the movie "My Stepmother is an Alien" Kim Basinger talks about using spinach to warm her hands.
1. End homelessness
2. ????
3. No profit!
There's one of these freaking posts every single time, it never fails...
Who is this "we" of whom you speak? Unless you're suffering under a dictatorship, I would imagine that *you* have considerable liberty to improve the plight of the downtrodden. So, if this is indeed a serious concern of yours, then by all means cooperate with the *millions of like-minded individuals already working on this problem*, or secure government funding and go at it yourself!
*We* aren't a collective, we're a *collection* of individuals. Beyond government programs funded through the compulsatory progressive taxes already levied in most modern democracies, there is, and ought to be, only the vast territory of personal choice. A certain group of scientists at MIT have elected to exercise their personal liberty in this persuit, and as I see it are accountable only to their own sense of propriety in doing so. If you feel that one should do otherwise, then *you* ought to get at it!
Wouldn't it be more effective to transform spinach into methane by natural methods and build fuel cells into underwear?
Except we used a potato and a beaker with salt water. The power we generated we used to light a bulb. ;)
Come and say hi. http://forum.penpals.com/index.php
Plants' ability to generate energy has been optimized by evolution, so a spinach plant is extremely efficient, churning out a lot of energy relative to its size and weight.
From http://physlink.com/: As a side note, you may be interested to know many foods have naturally occuring radioactive isotopes present in them already. For example bananas and spinach have potassium 40.
Wow! Now we can have all those nuclear-powered gadgets the people in the 1950's thought we'd have!
Just one question: How long before someone figures out how to make it explode?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
The complaint about building exoskeletal suits was the weight of a battery and how much energy they use. In some articles it noted how powerfull muscles were and were powered with things like carrots. This article didn't mention any sort of future power or costs, but one can't help to think of combining the two.
I used to work in the ag-packaging industry.
Boxes for spinach are very distinctive, because they have a TON of holes in them to allow cooling systems to be more efficient when they're stacked on a pallet in a refrigerated truck etc.
(most boxes for leafy greens-lettuce, etc. have a few holes but nothing like on the scale of spinach boxes)
When I asked about this, I was told that the spinach is so biologically active--even after being picked--that it generated enough heat inside the boxes to require extra cooling--otherwise the shelf life would plummet.
Hint: keep your greens at EXACTLY 34F / 1C (no lower than that, and not much more than a couple of degrees higher). They'll last far, far longer in your refrigerator!
So, I guess that's why they picked spinach for this project. That dark, dark green is there for a reason.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
So now we'll have Popeye poking around the internet with his spinach powered laptop: "ack ack ack ack ack"
"MIT researchers have incorporated a plant's ability to convert sunlight to energy"
/.)
And what is sunlight made of??
Light is not converted to energy. This sentence is ridiculous. The sunlight already is a form of energy that is converted to electrical energy through a new process.
Asinine statements like this really irk me (especially when they come from supposedly technical sources like
There should be a moderation category "Dumbest Comment EVER"
Hmmm, do you really think they'd let you on board the plane with a squirt-bottle full of Roundup, anyway?
Or is Roundup one of those "Sure, it kills plants down to their roots, but it's perfectly safe for humans. Here, I'll squirt it in my eyes to prove it!"
I'll have to check the label when I get home, I guess.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables
These babies will be in the stores while I'm still grappling with the pickle matrix
I meant to say, "you forGOT the URL" I hate it when I do that, especially in the subject --checks more closely for typos before submitting--
Chorus:
Quest for spinach! I need my greens. Quest for spinach! I need my greens. Quest for spinach! I need my greeeeeeens...
Its the early 1990s, the experts were wrong: Petroleum didn't run out, you can get it for a song. But the green stuff is gone and it's getting very dear. If you give me some, I'll cut off both my ears!
Bridge:
O Popeye, won't you save me, I don't think that I can make it. If I don't get some spinach, I'll have to... eat manicotti again! (audience: Oh no! Not manicotti!)
It seems to be harder than you think. First, what would you define as "not homeless". A service wall? A tent? A dorm? Communal facilities? a room with a lock? a room with a hotplate? a room with a stove and fridge? a room with a stove fridge, bathroom? etc. If someone trashes their room, are they now homeless again? Do they get a new room? If someone sublets their room and uses the money to buy drugs, are they homeless again? Where does that housing have to be: downtown? convenient to transit? in the suburbs? out in the country?
What if someone who could afford to rent decides that the free housing meets their needs or is better (ie: more central) than they could otherwise afford. Can they just move in?
Most of the "simple" solutions to these social justice/human needs issues tend to assume that everyone will always act in the best interests of the collective and that everyone's ability to understand, work within and take advantage of the system are roughly equal. In addition, they tend to assume that Maslowe's heirarchy holds equivalently for everyone (drugs kind of throw a wrench in this/
If you have a good solution that does not rely on the above assumptions, I can think of number of cities that would be interested in hearing from you.
Next thing you know, there will be organic satellites named Spudnik.
Everything they say about vegetables is wrong. When I was a kid, my mom always said if I ate my vegetables, I would grow up to be big and strong. Now I am 4'11 and I can bench press the bar. If spinach isn't good enough for me, then it's not good enough for my computer. Someone needs to find a way to power it with beef.
Also note worthy is that researchers at MIT have found a way to produce similar results using animal flesh. The most drastic results, reaching the unheard of 99% efficiency level, are in the Equus Caballus species. A resurgence in the use of the term "horse power" is expected.
Take a car, cover it in little tanks of water, put algae in the tanks, harvest the algae, feed them to methane-producing bacteria, drive your car - clean fuel!
Until the car breaks and methane goes everywhere.
But on the bright side, you could change the colour of your car by putting red-green algae, cyanobacteria, etc in the tanks!
Minor correction to the URL
here
This is a great acheivement and all, but I didn't see any numbers showing efficiency, voltage& curreent produced/square cm, etc.
How do they compare to silicon based solar cells both in price (now they probably can't, but what about future projections), power density and efficiency?
I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals. ;-)
I'm a vegetarian because I hate vegetables.
Be sure to check the label before the squirt test. Might be tough to do afterward.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
or, say, cancer. why on earth would people expect science to be of help there? or environmental destruction... i mean, what's science supposed to do, come up with more efficient, cleaner energy sources or something?
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Has anyone done the popeye joke yet? Anyways, youd think that spinach wouldnt work all that well. Kudzu would be a much better alternative... i deal with it almost daily (damned weeds) and the stuff literally grows almost a foot a day (i got out a tape measure for this one) and its about as easy to rid yourself of as HIV. why go for a dinner supplement when you can have the Jason of the plant world?
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
The sad part is, I wasn't even trolling this time.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Please visit the website of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables (www.petv.org) to help fight the atrocities committed in the name of science!
Oops, our site just went down. Please try again later.
... the interviewer suddenly heard a faint *da da da daa da daaaaa*(Popeye music) only to see the student whip out a can. He squeezed it and watched as some spinach flew out, up into the air and into his mouth.
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
Perfect for Popeye.
--piaqt
Sorensen FW, Gregersen M.
Rapid lethal intoxication caused by the herbicide glyphosate-trimesium (Touchdown)
Hum Exp Toxicol. 1999 Dec;18(12):735-7.
Two cases of rapid lethal intoxication with the herbicide glyphosate-trimesium (Touchdown) are presented. A 6-year-old boy who accidentally ingested a mouthful of glyphosate-trimesium died within minutes. The same happened to a 34-year-old woman who intentionally ingested approximately 150 ml of glyphosate-trimesium. The post-mortem examination revealed gastric content and oedema of the mucus membranes of the airways, erosion of the mucus membranes of the gastrointestinal tract, pulmonary oedema, cerebral oedema, and dilated right atrium and ventricle of the heart. The speed of which death occurs is much more rapid than lethal intoxications with the herbicide glyphosate (isoprophylamine), also known as 'Roundup'. It is suggested that the lethal mechanism between the two herbicides may be different. The component, trimethylsulfonium, of the glyphosate-trimesium may facilitate the absorption after oral ingestion. This difference can be crucial in the treatment of human intoxication. We propose that containers with glyphosate-trimesium must be labelled because of the apparent effect of lethal intoxication.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Glyphosate would not inhibit Photosystem I. It is an inhibitor of 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase. This enzyme is essential for plant cells to produce aromatic compounds including aromatic amino acids.
Freedom: "I won't!"
All my assumptions involve spending a lot of money so none of them are practical. I know none of them will be easy.
Since you mention drugs, I kind of have some ideas along those lines that would probably be helpful, but I don't see any of them happening either.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've been asking about this technology since 7th grade when I first learned about photosynthesis. It's about time someone got the digital atp working. sweet. [off to read the article]
she's a girl!!
you know you have made it when you post at -1!
keep trying
it's being bloated, will use more spinash and will be a case with Boulimia nervosa right ?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Now all we have to do is make a GardenMatrix so the spinich will live in a virtual reality of growing in old man Hatchets garden. ...that is, until the "One" rises to power. The One is Spineo.....okay, that got pretty lame fast.
Laptop running Windows:
"I yam that I yam and that's all that I yam" - BSOD...
Laptop running Linux:
"Buy me a hamburger today and I will gladly display an X Window on Tuesday!"
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I'm not attacking solar cells as they stand. I'm defending the usefulness of research into these new cells.
Solar cells are very toxic to produceon a per-weight basis. This toxicity is manageable and less dangerous than NiCad. It pays for itself in lower conventional pollution and similar devices are being made heedless of the toxicity. Sure.
I'd question the "locked away for 20-30 years" bit, in this context. If you were to put solar cells in more consumer electronics as the article suggests, you'd have the same issue with throwing them away to be melted down.
Nonetheless, solar cells are manageable. The toxicity of nuclear power can also be well managed to provide some of the cleanest energy around. That doesn't mean solar cells, wind-power, and hydro aren't worthwhile to avoid dealing with the political hot potato that is nuclear waste.
Like it or not, solar cell toxicity is an issue in the real world. It may be silly to worry about it, but the way solar cells chart is causing problems for them. Therefore, a less-toxic solar cell is a useful thing to develop, competitive in value with directly addressing homelessness. *This* is the point I was addressing, and what I said in defence of it is not a serious distortion of the facts.
If you'd prefer to protest conventional CPU chips to make the whole thing fair, go for it. I'm going to A) not protest CPUs, considering the overall worth more than the cost, B) not protest current solar cells, and C) trumpet the arrival of cleaner methods of doing pretty much anything. Agreed?
right! science shouldn't be expected to solve these very difficult socioeconomic problems
They're not difficult. Not in rich western countries, anyway. There's just not the political will to do what it takes in many countries. Several other countries have had homelessness effectively eradicated for longer or shorter periods in the past, though the tendency recently ahs been to not give a fuck.
Cancer, cleaner energy etc, those are hard problems that need science to solve. Many problems have already been solved by science, many have a science based solution that isn't being applied, and many have trivial common-sense solutions that aren't being applied. If the people in charge (and their voters) say "no thanks, I think I'll have the tax cut in stead", there's not a lot science can do about that.
sudo ergo sum
As for the economy, think of what the economy is related to this particular vicious cycle. Currently the government is making far more revenue in kickbacks due to asset-seizure because of the black market economy, sending it into slush-funds and wasting it on pork and black-ops. Locking up people who would otherwise still be working, and going through treatment and removing that tax money from the coffers seems pretty dumb to me...it has seemed dumb for over 70 years. Now if you will excuse me while I go put my tinfoil hat back on.
Actually, the seed oils in drug type cannabis contain more compounds which can be extracted and turned into Biodiesel fuel. The traditional "hemp" seeds of the lesser-potency non-drug types of cannabis have about 30% fewer oils under identical growing conditions because they just have smaller seeds.
Also, hemp IS the greatest thing for the world. It is one plant from which you can get the ingredients for:
- Paper
- Oils (both lubricating and fuel such as Biodiesel)
- Textiles and clothing (Up to four times as soft as cotten when properly processed)
- Rope (One of the big uses of hemp in WW2. Read about how domestic farmers were able to grow hemp during WW2 under the "hemp for victory" label, in order to supply the US government with the fiber it needed for uniforms and ropes and tents because the main hemp supply from the phillipenes was cut off)
- Omega-3 fatty acids are contained within the seeds, and the derived seed oil is extremely good for you. (From the American Heart Association's website: "Omega-3 fatty acids benefit the heart of healthy people, and those at high risk of or who have cardiovascular disease.")
And let us not forget the boon of farmland aeration and hillside retention. Cannabis plants can grow their roots up to six feet outwards laterally and up to two feet in depth over the course of ONE SEASON. This is THE MOST root growth of any plant known to man and makes cannabis perfect for holding up the ground in temporary landslide zones and aerating cropland. As it is an annual plant it would not serve much purpose as more than a temporary solution to a given problem.
And the coolest thing is that you can get it all from ONE PLANT! One plant that grows in every state of the country unattended (it's a WEED!) and could solve all of our domestic energy needs, our domestic textile and paper needs, our domestic lubrication needs, and so on. Using the fiber of the stalks for textiles and paper doesn't take away from the oil production you get from the seeds and vice-versa, so the potential diversity of product from the first crop is very great.
There are more reasons to legalize cannabis cultivation and processing than simply getting high. It holds benefits for mankind that far surpass the selfish moment of being totally stoned off your ass.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.