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Kidney Cells Make Implantable Power Source
Galactic_grub writes "New Scientist has an interesting round-up of patents related to green power technology. The ideas mentioned include an implantable power source made from stacks of kidney cells that could drive implanted devices like pacemakers, a chemical way to purifying hydrogen, a buckyball-based filter for methane fuel cells and an organism that turns grass cuttings (and other bio-waste) into ethanol."
1. An apparatus comprising: at least one cell culture chamber wherein live neurons are maintained and grown; and a means for harnessing the thoughts and ideas generated by the live neurons, said means being connected with said neuron culture chamber.
Recalling a time when a working example of the device to be patented had to be presented.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
I agree. I find it obscene that turning "food" into fuel is subsidised when there are starving people in the world.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Lets see what we can deduce about the poster above:
1. not fat, otherwise it would be a very hypocritical post
2. doesn't smoke, so same as #1
3. his parents didn't love him, otherwise he might be less of a dick
4. barely graduated from high school, otherwise he might have a larger vocabulary
5. must I list any more, its this kind of person who's the real "fucktarded" one... jeez i sound dumb just making fun of the use of that non-word
the vast raw power of irrationally ultranegative trolls
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Because God forbid you should have to take responsibility for your CO2 production helping cause climate change with much more frequent droughts and floods ruining crops. It's all attributable to foreign dictators and stupid peasants. Political instability due to greed over resource extraction to feed Western industry also has nothing to do with it.
I bet you vote libertarian.
It's subsidising food which cause there to be starving people in the world.
Deleted
So you're going to give up part of your kidney for a pacemaker or insulin pump? When they've already solved the rejection problems in far less invasive ways?
I'm not sure what a host's body rejecting an implantable device has to do with biobatteries. As you've said, rejection of the device can be deterred in other ways. It's more likely that biobatteries are being developed so that an otherwise-functional implantable device won't have to be replaced several times over a host's lifetime just because its batteries have been depleted.
That type of surgery is hard on a host. For example, for the last twenty years, my father has needed a pacemaker to regulate his bradycardia (extremely slow heartrate). In that time, he has undergone three pacemaker replacements, all due to depleted batteries. As he gets older, these procedures have taken an increasing toll on his health. One of these days, he will be deemed physically unable to recover from one of these procedures and, in essence, he'll only survive as long as his most recently-implanted pacemaker's batteries hold out.
So, I wouldn't say that biobatteries/biogenerators are "dubiously useful". As mentioned in the article, these batteries are self-sustaining and should endure for the host's lifetime. Personally, if Dr. Levinson can produce such a thing, then more power to him.