Slashdot Mirror
Human Blood For Electrical Power
burner writes "A Japanese research team has developed a fuel cell that runs on blood without using toxic substances, opening the way for use in artificial hearts and other organs. The biological fuel cell uses glucose with a non-toxic substance used to draw electrons from glucose. So where should I have my laptop power port installed?"
Always wondered how the machines used people as power in the Matrix. This explains everything!
Sheesh Apple wants $100.00 for an iBook battery, but that's cheap compared to tapping a vein.
On the other hand, I suppose you can replace your blood for less, and in less time.
Virgins will be ritualistical sacrificed to power the laptops of the Profane!
We're totally bound to see Vampire robots!
-FweE-
Last time I checked, I run on blood, too...
The line between technology and the living is thinning.
MAKE YOUR TIME
Now all we need is a way to darken the sky.
Man, that seems awfully Matrix-y. I suppose it would be possible to power something nontrivial if you had enough people to do it...maybe prisons will no longer have electric bills eventually?
Its interesting, but unless you can use multiple cells or something there is not enough power to run any kind of pump. Afaik one of the major issues with any kind of artificial heart is it kills some of the cells as it pumps. Still this kind of technology is definitely interesting, and who knows what might be possible in the long term.
Didn't slashdot report on this last year? Japanese researchers, check; using blood for energy, check...seems like a dupe, yeah.
;)
In any case, 0.2 milliwatts isn't exactly that much power: the AbiCor artificial heart documentation mentions that it consumes several watts from its external battery pack, a far cry from what this provides.
Though, I can imagine a beowulf cluster of these.
The ideal way to use this would IMO be to use it thought magnetic induction. That way, the device can be completely subcutaneous. It could be placed on several places in the body. To power a lower power device, you would simply place one or both hands on it (Like you naturally rest your wrists on a laptop) , or grab it, depending on the style of the device. For devices needing more power, induction zones could be placed on the rear upper thighs, simply requiring you to sit on the power receptor. I suppose the area would suffice to transfer a quite significant amount of power, of course depending on the size of your butt. As an added advantage it would provide built-in heating in the aforementioned places.
-Lasse
Oh... and only females can have the power sockets. Yeah, maybe that'll motivate all of us geeks to go and find some girlfriends. We need the power source!
*SMACK*
Oh sorry, I was having a geek wetdream. Reality is a harsh mistress.
I know the poster was joking about the port... but such a concept is interesting, not for its laptop powering abilities... but for health and weight loss potential.
/.
Why go to the gym to work out and burn calories from when you can plug a small cord into your mid section that would enable the device to draw energy directly from your system... and when your blood was running low... fat stores would naturally be tapped.
Result? Losing weight while reading
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I suspect that this technology could be part of a comprehensive weight loss strategy. Eat all you want, and burn the calories by powering gadgets! exciting :-)
The poll's missing an option now.
"Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Take over the world."
"We're totally bound to see Vampire robots!"
Met the ex-wife, have you?
Hypoglycemia would indeed be a concern. However, the possibilities are intriguing for Type 2 diabetics, who are usually insulin resistant and have way too much glucose in their blood. If a fuel cell can use up that extra glucose, they might actually be able to make a device that would monitor, record, and lower the blood glucose level to normal or thereabouts. Imagine, diabetics could actually wind up producing more power than they use...
"Where am I going, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
behold the iClot !
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
The electrons don't just vanish.
:) ).
:)
If they did, the energy released would probably turn us into miniature suns the moment we turned one of these on.
It's more likely that the now unstable glucose molecules will break down into carbon dioxide and urea, consuming some oxygen in the process, much like it does when consumed by a normal cell. One presumes the spent potential from the electrons will result in the electrons returning to the blood stream.
And yeah, pushing this too hard would probably fairly easily kill the user, (read, a laptop at 60-100Watts? i doubt it. maybe a trickle charger for the battery
A well controlled system could easily result in an acceptable increase in energy consumption, which would result in weight loss, without actually exercising (also, not a good thing, since the muscles aren't going to develop, but the fat will be consumed, leaving the user with no way to keep warm). One presumes that anyone using a device like this would be on a strict high-glucose intake diet.
of course, this is conjecture, i've only done basic biology and chemistry
Andrew
they'll be actual blood-suckers.
and the guy next to me stops working on his laptop and starts looking at me weird, I'm gonna freak.
It takes just a moment and an action to destroy. It takes some time and thought to create.
Do I have enough blood to boot Longhorn, or should I wait for the Service Pack?
Everyone should just buy a hummer.
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
Note: I'm not saying that the device would lower glucose levels by consuming glucose, but since it is powered by sugar, the current should be proportional to the amount of sugar. If blood sugar is high, the implant's signal is high, and the pump delivers more insulin. No real logic required. That's why it's such a good fit. And they say so in the article:
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
When Morpheus said they believe the Matrix uses people as a power source for the machines, I thought "Lisa! In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!", but on their web site I found a more coherant explanation, written by Neil Gaiman.
Unfortunatly, they discarded the better writer's explanation and went ahead with their sillyness in the sequels. But you can still read the short story (it's on the first DVD, too).
You can't take the sky from me...