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Yeast-Powered Fuel Cell Feeds On Human Blood
holy_calamity writes "Canadian researchers have taken a sensible, if slightly creepy, step towards solving the problem of medical implant batteries running down. They've built a fuel cell powered by yeast that feed on the glucose in human blood. If this makes it into people, keeping your implants going will be as simple as eating a donut."
Read the FA, especially linked journal summary, published back in December.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/wrapper.jsp?arnumber=4671110
This isn't an April Fools joke.
This is brilliant. There's been a lot of scifi stories that hypothesized implants that run off of neural impulses; this isn't limited by the extremely small amounts of electricity that the nervous system generates.
Waste is definitely going to be a problem, but one that's likely solvable by engineering yeast that produce waste that can be metabolized and flushed out by the liver or kidneys.
This may also be an answer to the problem of powering nanomachines that repair the human body. I'm hardly an expert in the field, anyone who is (and is still here today) care to comment?
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or brewer's yeast, which is what they are using doesn't cause yeast infections. You are thinking of the pathogenic strain Candida albicans.
Double Shenanigans. You clearly haven't heard of/ been taught the...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_pass_effect
Things from your gut flow first to the liver before entering general circulation. This helps eliminate a lot of the crap you eat/drink on a regular basis.
The hepatic portal system == blood, but != general circulation (which is where your brain would be connected.. and where alcohol would be dangerous)
so it works like this:
alcohol in your face-> small intestine -> hepatic portal system -> liver metabolism-> general circulation -> brain -> posting stupid shit on slashdot -> sense of superiority
It just so happens that much of the alcohol you drink does make it to general circulation, as the livers ability to process alcohol tops out at around 14-15g/hour.. so a lot of the alcohol you consume does make it to general circulation. If you think an implantable object (under, say, 10cm) full of yeast could make 15g of alcohol in an hour, you are being silly. Also, with time, your body would compensate and ramp up its enzymes and eliminate the alcohol faster, i.e. functioning alcoholics who can drink a fifth a night and not wobble.
TLDR: first guy is wrong because the levels of alcohol produced by a couple yeast would not make you wasted all the time, second guy is wrong because your liver gets first pick at all the poisonous crap you eat before it reaches the parts of your bloodstream where your brain is.