back to article In-body electric eel tech to make 'leccy from body fat

US scientists believe it could be possible to use artificial electric eel cells grafted into the human body to generate power for cybernetic implant devices. The pseudo-electrocytes would harvest the necessary energy from body fats and sugars. Engineer David LaVan of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh dear

    Andrew Eldritch may sue.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Humans are inefficient

    But how about using this to create real energizer bunnies!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    New High-Tech Application

    With several of these devices implanted and connected to versatile energy transmission devices (obviously through robust and very durable energy couplings, able to withstand the full range of human activities), you could generate enough energy to power a heated thermal vest to keep warm in cold conditions.

    Or you could just wear a jumper ....

    Mines the all natural fibre (and cheap) coat, thanks.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    That's all very well, but...

    ... more importantly - does this mean shooting bolts of lightning from my fingertips?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Fat bottom girls make the new energy markets go round

    She's electric, got a family full of eccentrics

    Done things i never expected, and i need more time...

    Plug the old wife in at the mains and she can pay the phone bill while she natters.

    Any lip and just reverse the current flow ;-)

    Ain't technology wonderful.

    <pedant> Excluding the 5p connection charge, its 2p a min to other landlines on BT, so having both parties wired up at 1p/hour makes the call free. If its a fat burd, might even make a profit </pedant>

  6. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
    Coat

    @New High-Tech Application

    Except you'd feel the cold more, 'cos you'd burnt all of your insulating subcutaneous body fat...

  7. Elmer Phud
    Boffin

    What came first?

    So, if you could wank enough to power a device to look at porn on the web, how do you power up the device without the porn to look at?

  8. Ian K
    Thumb Up

    Take that, flossie!

    With this sort of uber tech the Welsh bobbies wouldn't need taser guns to keep the local sheep in line.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    But

    imagine the amount of lecy we could get of the Average American, so much blubber, so much power!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hmm bio tek grafts eh.....

    I reckon I could get served so much quicker in the local with some electric ray/catfish implants. Sneak up behind whomever's next in the queue and Zap...... Saves carrying the official BofH brand industrial cattleprod. Cone shell venom delivery implants next anyone ?

  11. drunk.smile
    Alien

    May I be one of the first

    to welcome our eel/human hybrid overlords.

  12. M
    Happy

    This is great

    So you mean I can charge my phone using my blubber? Bring it on.

  13. Robert Grant

    Now we just need to liquefy the dead to feed the living...

    ...and we've got sustainable power!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Sounds cool. I hope this isnt the last we hear of it.

    think of the possibilities!

    you could power an electric bike and really burn fat.

    Cops could have built in tazers.

    under-skin LEDs

  15. Grant Mitchell
    Boffin

    @Rich Bryant

    Nah, doesn't sound like there will be enough power for flashing on the bathroom wall.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Where There's a Will ...

    ... there's a way. So what if women got the idea that they could implant ... umm ... arousal devices powered from their implanted 'leccy-eel power generatiors? They could slim and have fun at the same time!

    I bet Paris would want to be a Guinea Pig ..... well, not an actual small furry animal, but, you know, a testing candidate .... although whether or not she's been overly affectionate with small furry animals is probably a matter of debate ....

  17. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    A new angle on an old schoolboy gag.

    Let's face it, it was always a tad difficult to sneak up on someone while holding a Van der Graaf generator and standing on a plastic box.

    In this new brighter future, the zap finger of death can be produced merely by thinking about it.

    Just out of interest, anyone here know why it is that school-standard grey flannel trousers enhance the effect on the zappee?

  18. Harry
    Happy

    "artificial electric eel cells grafted into the human body"

    What a shocking idea!

    Power to the people ... ???

  19. Timothy Slade
    Boffin

    Adenosine triphosphate

    Is used in signaling between nerve cells. Energy is produced from it by breaking the phosphate bonds. When all the phosphate bonds have been broken, the adenosine (if I'm remembering this correctly) migrates back along the signal path to the preceding nerve/neuron and inhibits it from firing, as the receiving cell (the one that has released the adenosine) has no resources left to deal with any input. One of the ways in which caffeine works in the body is by binding onto adenosine receptor sites, without inhibiting the cell, thereby blocking adenosine from other cells from binding, which allows that nerve/neuron to keep firing.

    All of which leads me to wonder if people with such implants will be restricted from consuming anything caffeinated.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Enforcement

    It should be obligitary for everybody to have such cells implanted in their chest wired up to a kind of biological rfid chip keyed to the persons DNA. Whenever a crime was committed the police could simply remote activate the cells of the person with the offending dna, producing a severe tazing effect. The perpetrator could be kept incapactiated until local police had located and arrested them. For minor crimes a remote tazong might be sufficient as a punishment thus saving both the police's and the court's.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    New Field Needs a New Name

    You know, this invention of subcutaneous 'leccy-eel power generation and ideas for associated implanted devices (including the female arousal type) could spawn an entirely new field of endeavour. Of course, this field would need a name. I suggest we call it .... "Twat-a-tronics".

    Alright, alright, I'm going.

  22. P. Lee
    Alien

    I'm not interested...

    unless the power is somewhere between a taser and the emperor in star wars.

    Humans - now just a light-bulb with eyes...

  23. Thomas
    Joke

    Rapturous idea

    We'll all end up smacking the stuffing out of divers with scary little girls chasing after us with huge syringes.

  24. TimM
    Thumb Up

    Good for BK & MuckyD

    Reduce their carbon footprint by being self sufficient in energy and just harvest the power from their diners as they munch through their greasy burgers.

    Go a step further and they can absorb the grease off their skins and re-use it in the fryers.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    *changes name to Copper-top*

    Great idea!

    Quick thought: Mobile ITX will be 7W, which is 23,334 times what one 4mm cube can create.

    That's still only 0.001493376 cubic meters (1.5ltrs) of properly harnessed fat that'll be needed! I'm pretty sure that I've got more than that spare over my body (not much more though, ladies :P) - so with a bit of this new bio-tech stuff they're telling me that I could turn my fat into Quake-3 capable levels of computing power?!

    Which would be able to use my non-computing downtime to zap my muscles and gradually make me a bit musclier etc?

    Now we just need a decent retinal implant, camera implants for visual feedback and a high-fat diet to keep it all running and we'll have JC Dentons and AR-equipped athletes running about!

    I wonder if all that energy discharging around you would tickle?

    Shades because his vision is augmented.

  26. Chris
    Boffin

    I want my watch implant

    Just imagine, if we combine these with luciferase (I think that's the enzyme in fireflies) generating cells, you ought to be able to embed a watch directly into your wrist.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Food price

    Nice idea about plugging one's self into the mains and feeding electricity back into the grid and being paid for it, but I wonder, if the price of food required to generate that electricity would be more expensive than the cost the power company is willing to pay you for it..in which, it's a non starter.

  28. andre
    Joke

    OM NOM NOM ZAP NOM

    hehe... this is how "The Matrix" may have started...

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @RotaCyclic

    Sure, maybe you can't SAVE money, but if it means I get to eat bacon cheeseburgers for free without gaining weight, I'm all for it!

    In other news, when told that another researcher had tried to steal their glory, the professors shook their fists, and said, "Eel be sorry!"

    *grabs coat and leaves, whistling 'electric avenue'*

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re Andre

    Perhaps this story is just living history...

  31. Marvin the Martian
    Unhappy

    Oh no!

    From now on, it's not safe anymore to laugh at Capt Cyborg to his face --- you know he'll be the first to install this, and you'll know he did it when he zaps you in anger.

  32. Chris Cheale

    Capn Cyborg won't be interested...

    This is BioTech not Cybernetics...

    Hmmmm.... the world gets more Shadowrun every day.

  33. Iain
    Joke

    Paging Dr Moreau, would Dr Moreau please come to the Island room.

    I've made my joke

  34. Mr Mark V Thomas
    Flame

    Re: Good for BK & Mucky D

    And after they do that, they impersonate Argon from a certain Kentucky Fried Movie sketch, & use the fat from the fryers, to run their delivery vans on...

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