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Super-Strong Synthetic Muscles Developed
Too Hot! wrote to mention a BBC article about extremely powerful synthetic muscles. From the article: "The most powerful type, 'shorted fuel cell muscles' convert chemical energy into heat, causing a special shape-memory metal alloy to contract. Turning down the heat allows the muscle to relax. Lab tests showed that these devices had a lifting strength more than 100 times that of normal skeletal muscle. Another kind of muscle being developed by the team converted chemical energy into electrical energy which caused a material made from carbon nanotube electrodes to bend."
Scientists have developed artificial, super-strength muscles which are powered by alcohol and hydrogen.
I for one welcome our new Bender overlords.
Scientists have developed artificial, super-strength muscles which are powered by alcohol and hydrogen.
This could take bar fights to a whole new level.
First, the human body is indeed effective, but not anywhere *close* to what you claim. The thing is, when you calculate the calorie-need for a certain activity, you typically do so by looking at a table. Say swim a mile in half an hour requires about X calories.
But those numbers are *already* calculated (or more likely measured) including the human inefficiencies.
Ever noticed you get warm and start sweating if you do heavy work ? That's waste heat for you baby.
If you pedal a bike, and generate 100W, you'll use significantly more than 25cal/s doing so (a calorie is about 4 Joule).
Second, producing "450 horsepower pro second" is a completely nonsensical statement. Horsepower (or KW) are measures of *power*, A car migth have 100 horsepower, you can measure it over a second, an hour or a year, it'll still have 100 horsepower.
It's a lot like saying you're 6 feet tall pro second, which makes no sense, unless perhaps you mean you *grow* at 6 feet pro second.
The article is dumb. 100 times as strong as skeletal muscle is a statement with no meaning unless you specify what exactly you mean;