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Bacteria As Fuel Cells?
KantIsDead writes "MIT's Tech Review is running an interview with Boston University Bioengineer Tim Gardner about the possibility of using bacteria to produce electricity. If fuel cells running off sugar are nearly here, alcohol-powered robots cannot be far." From the article: "While typical fuel cells use hydrogen as fuel, separating out electrons to create electricity, bacteria can use a wide variety of nutrients as fuel. Some species, such as Shewanella oneidensis and Rhodoferax ferrireducens, turn these nutrients directly into electrons. Indeed, scientists have already created experimental microbial fuel cells that can run off glucose and sewage. Although these microscopic organisms are remarkably efficient at producing energy, they don't make enough of it for practical applications."
Have they tried feeding them Taco Bell?
Alcohol powered robots can bite my shiny metal ass!
I like my beverages with warning labels!
Couldn't this be considered somehow as animal cruelty?
No Sigs!
"alcohol-powered"
"glucose and sewage"
The future will be full of cars that only exaust water....and fueling stations brimming with switch-grass, corn-mash, stale beer, human feces, and the occasional Rhodoferax ferrireducens bateria. And I thought horses smelled bad....
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I invented this concept years ago. Step 1: Get my feet really worked up and sweaty while trapped in a tight shoe -- this spurs bacterial growth Step 2: Take off shoe and attack roommate with it -- roommate runs away from the stink, but he is roped onto a treadmill Step 3: The kinetic energy from the treadmill's movement is converted into electrical energy. I've just been working on creating a pocket sized roommate/treadmill, I was pretty darn close too.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
Neither can power plugs that you can directly plug into your ass after ingesting healthy amounts of symbiotic bacteria.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Yes.
Sure they would reproduce asexually and that would limit mutations compared to our dirty process
with gametes and zygotes,
Bacteria can reproduce sexually as well. There's no stopping the horny little bastards.
If you provide an constant, optimum climate for your strain, however, there wouldn't be a great deal of evolutionary pressure forcing them to mutate into non-viable types.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No one tell the computers, or they won't have any reason to keep us alive after they take over.
Plus the bacteria won't need an elaborate VR to keep them occupied while generating electricity.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
The world has found a use for politicians...
Now you'll be asking people to piss in your gas tank!
"...alcohol-powered robots cannot be far."
Some of them work in the cubicle next to mine...
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law