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Your Body, the Battery: Powering Gadgets From Human "Biofuel"
An anonymous reader writes: This article takes a look at the future of electronic devices powered by the human body. From the electric voltage in mammal ears called the endocochlear potential, to body heat, and muscle motion, there are a number of exciting new areas of energy research being explored. Ars reports: "Staying alive guzzles energy. In order to keep us ticking, our bodies need to burn between 2,000 and 2,500 calories per day, which is conveniently enough to power a modestly used smart phone. So if just a fraction of that energy could be siphoned, our bodies could in theory be used to run any number of electronic devices, from medical implants to electronic contact lenses—all without a battery in sight. Recently, researchers have taken important strides toward unlocking this electric potential."
I didn't make it past TFH.
" which is conveniently enough to power a modestly used smart phone". Actually 2000 calories per day is about 100W. That's a pretty damned big smartphone.
Our bodies are also remarkably good at performing maintenance in either the form of repair or replacement (cells). Electronic gadgets that extract energy via chemical process means will inevitably require periodic reconditioning.
Life is not for the lazy.
So now people will want to get paid just for living...
To generate extra energy to power my devices? I could see myself enjoying that :D
What if I had a machine that tried to extract, say, 4,000 calories worth? Would that lead eventually to automatic weight reduction?
Off the top of my head I would think no, because I would still need to generate that 4,000 calories in a consumable form in order to make them available for extraction. From reading though, I can't tell if the devices are pure extraction or whether they also stimulate the conversion process.
how many cals can you burn with these things?
Any number as long they have only a TINY power requirement.
....every day simply by staying alive, then it really tends to put a fine point on the amount of calories the average American lard-ass consumes.
Wanna cure morbid obesity? Have all social media devices powered by human sweat. Narcissism alone would ensure an active lifestyle.
A metric fuck ton is a member of the set of "run any number of electronic devices"! There is an excuse for all those merking fat fuckers after all . They are a waddling power point for the rest of us.
He said potential. Heh, heh.
one serious problem that western society has is the overuse of sugar in our foods. it's lead to the fat american and has already infected europe. if these technologies can actually take the sugar out of our blood before it hits the liver, that would be great. however, seeing as how people are going to start dying off in droves from diabetes, i think there will be a correction in the food market before this technology is mature enough to be useful for general use.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
If all this walking seems like too much effort, and you don’t like their idea of people wrapping fabric around your heart, never fear—you’re also full of hot air.
I'm afraid this hot air inside me could be made to generate electricity using a simple turbine...
-- Make America hate again!
"A lot of blood and sweat went into this thing", they can really mean it.
obligatory
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Many, many moons ago I had picked up some books about the size of a Reader's Digest which had stories from various authors. I cannot remember the name of the publication but one story in them talks about this very subject.
In short, concerts of the day had people wearing headbands which drew upon the electrical energy from each person. This energy was then transmitted to the performers to power their equipment. The more energetic the fans, the more power.
The lead singer of a group eventually uses this energy to commit suicide by wrapping herself in a metal mesh. She discusses this with the other main character in the story.
If anyone knows the name of the story and/or what publication it was from, that would be great.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"...They're going to re-insert my body into the matrix.... when I wake up, I won't remember a goddamned thing!"
I, for one, welcome our new mechanical overlords.
1. Charge your phone from your body
2. Enjoy this Direct-To-Brain entertainment.
3. Real AI research.
4. Matrix.
I'm a large-capacity storage cell for my iPad.
Didn't I watch a movie where this happened?
Potentially, this could lead to a new kind of "job": Powering other peoples' small devices from your body.
Why stop there? Why not gather all of the body heat produced by an average adult and use it to power whatever you desire.
Maybe you could put people in suspended animation, and then allow them to play in a virtual world, while you harvest the power produced by their body, to run the simulation.
Combine this with a form of fusion, and I'm sure this would look pretty cool.
I will await news of the first case of somebody literally starving to death from addiction to some phone app while running the phone off their body's energy. It's easy enough as it is for... susceptible individuals to forget to eat while engrossed in something like that. They don't need the phone to suck up their energy as well as their time.
A couple of folks I know could reeeeally use a methane to electricity converter ... conveniently made into underwear!
Now I laugh at their wattage.
Or
They laughed at my diabetes.
Or maybe even.
They laughed when I cried.
But really the article is a little low on information for slashdot standards. What are the materials used , how much sweat etc. ,how much power was produced.