Slashdot Mirror
Mimicking Electric Eel Cells
An anonymous reader writes "A team of US researchers has asked the following question in the new field of systems biology: 'Do we understand how a cell produces electricity well enough to design one, and to optimize that design?' They believe it should be possible to build artificial cells replicating the electrical behavior of electric eel cells. In fact, such artificial cells could deliver better performance — as much as 40% more energy than real eel cells, a computer model suggests. They could be used to power medical implants and other small devices."
Just creating the membranes would produce the equivalent of an artificial zombie cell, with no self-repair mechanisms and no way to replace them. A battery like this would be subject to attack by the immune system and by bacteria in the body, and likely "rot" in no time. Without the whole mechanism of a living cell to sustain it ... without the "brain" of the cell... it would need to be sealed and unable to take advantage of the bodies supply of ATP.
Better to see if you can enhance human cells, maybe even the recipient's own cells, to do the job.
We need to add biocapacitor cells as well. Eel + biocapacitors == Dragonball Z FTW!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
true, but there are other advantages.
for instance, if electronic implants become more mainstream, it would be useful for certain applications to power the implanted device via electrocytes rather than a rechargeable battery. rechargeable batteries, like all chemical batteries, wear out over time, and need to be replaced. this may require invasive surgery. if instead the patient were also given a bioimplant of electrocytes around the electronic device, then there would be guaranteed power source for the rest of the patient's life since the electrocytes would be self-replicating.
and the inefficiency of metabolic (or catabolic in this case) processes isn't an issue. most people living in developed nations have an excess of fat stores and energy reserves. and outside of extreme survival situations, most people don't have to ration their food intake or energy expenditure. it's not like having some electrocyte implants will cause a person to eat more food. an average person's food intake has nothing to do with their energy expenditure. most people can probably use burning some extra calories once in a while.
Can't we just implant a real eel? You know like the Jaffa have on Stargate.
I can't really think of any downside, oh wait...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Patient: Doctor, my pace maker needs a recharge.
Doctor: Ok, hold onto this for a moment would you? (hands patient a live eel)
I vote for the dancing lights. Can you imagine how spectacular a high-energy person like Usain Bolt or Shelly-Ann Fraser would be, running at night? Or what this could do during sex? Just think about challenging your partner to make you go bright blue, and having a partner who likes challenges.