Mad scientist zaps himself to determine the power of electric eel shocks

One man has calculated the power of electric shocks emitted from electric eels on the human arm - his in fact - all in the name of science. Kenneth Catania, a neurologist and biologist at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, repeatedly shoved his arm into a tank containing a small electric eel (Electrophorus electricus …

[TRT]

Can I be the first to say...

Eels, eels, eels, eels give it up now?

[fedoraman]

Re: Can I be the first to say...

...making an entrance where they can ....

[DNTP]

Once More, With Eeling

I can understand the researcher doing the eeldance once, but multiple times? Come on man, that's why you have graduate students!

Also, the circuit diagram shows the improper practice of touching the eel with the inside, or thumb-facing side of one's arm. Proper safety protocol demands the use of the outside, or pinky-facing, side of one's arm so that the involuntary contraction of one's muscles, should such an incident occur, will automatically move the arm in a direction that breaks the circuit.

[m0rt]

Re: Once More, With Eeling

Oh I dunno . I have massive respect for him over this. I mean, this is possibly the first time someone could go up for both the Nobel, and igNobel award at the same time!

[TRT]

Re: Once More, With Eeling

And Darwin.

[Coen Dijkgraaf]

Re: Once More, With Eeling

> And Darwin

No, he is only eligible for that if he manages to take himself out of the gene-pool, so he either needs to be killed or be rendered sterile by his experiments.

He could get an Honorable Mention though, like this guy though

7200 Volts And A Dim Bulb

http://www.darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid2017-02.html

[Les Matthew]

Re: Once More, With Eeling

Eeling Comedy?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Once More, With Eeling

"Eeling Comedy?"

Only if your hovercraft is already full.

[Stevie]

Re: Once More, With Eeling

Well, DNTP, we all know where this research will end: someone's todger in the eel tank.

[John Smith 19]

"I can understand the researcher doing the eeldance once, "

I've got something for the pain

[Simon Brady]

Obligatory

The Difference

[NIck Hunn]

It's been done before

There's a great 1954 film clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdMp7qyyhB8

[Voland's right hand]

Re: It's been done before

Attenborough has a clip in one of his old movies as well. It was also with a big one (one big enough to kill you if you are not careful).

[Anonymous Coward]

If an eel is a battery

then how long will it keep my smartphone powered for? And recognising that a live eel is going to be a bit inconvenient in my pocket (insert your own joke here), how long before I can have a stem cell injection to make my arm behave like this, along with an inductive link to my phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If an eel is a battery

You want your arm to behave like an eel

so you can zap people with it don't you ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If an eel is a battery

I'd not considered that, but its quite a cool idea. And you could do some entertaining party tricks with balloons full of hydrogen, Christmas puddings laced with brandy, fireworks. And you could "touch and kill" electrostatic sensitive devices, like the loud mobile phones of colleagues left on their desk to annoy everybody else with a cheesy ringtone.

Conversely, "relaxing in the gentleman's fashion" could carry certain risks.

[Slackness]

Re: If an eel is a battery

And jump around, jump around...

[SkippyBing]

I'm sorry, they appear to have glossed over how they did the tricky bit. I.e. attaching the wires to the eel in the first place!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Carefully Skippybing ... very carefully!

[Lee D]

Rubber gloves.

Is it really that hard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eel be a while recovering from this.

[Korev]

Did you eely make that pun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the puns are out, Unadon it now, lets start a conger.

[Fink-Nottle]

Well done guys, that's some eelaborate wordplay.

Those puns hit my eye like a big pizza pie.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm shocked he eelectrocuted himself in the name of science.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Those puns hit my eye like a big pizza pie.

That's a moray.

[Tony W]

Why don't they shock themseleves?

An article in Popular Science based on this question gave the answer that basically we don't know. It certainly isn't explained by the equivalent circuit diagram given here. Any ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Crazy but fun, next week he's going to measure the force in a tigers bite.

(It's 1,000 psi, 4,450 newtons) or 44.5 Norris)

[Christoph]

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; give him a freshly-charged Electric Eel and chances are he won't bother you for anything ever again."

But at least they weren't Shrieking Eels.

[Alister]

I prefer pTerry's version:

Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life...

[Arthur the cat]

One bit of history I've remembered

is that the ancient Greeks applied an electric eel as the treatment for a prolapsed rectum.

Icon because there isn't a lightning strike option.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: One bit of history I've remembered

Rectum?

It sure did! They could not sit for days!

[John Latham]

Shock in watts?

"the power of the shock was calculated to be approximately 3.9 Watts – enough to make Catania flinch and pull away"

Electric fence energisers are rated in joules. I assume this is because energy is correlated with unpleasantness.

Mine runs at 0.8J. I'd rate it about 6 on the psychological damage scale, or "not doing that again, even for beer".

[JassMan]

Re: Shock in watts?

Yep, its a real shame that he didn't set up the experiment to include a storage scope so he could record the time element. Looking at some of the videos, it looks like the fish can sustain up to 2 seconds of pulses at an approximate 50% duty cycle although probably not a square wave. It does look though as if this little fish could possibly produce more energy than a 0.8J fence.

edit: Just found a video ( youtu.be/VGbj9Up4dvs ) showing one goading an alligator then killing it. Unfortunately for the fish, the gator dies with a death grip on its neck. The main thing is, it keeps shocking the gator continuously for just over 45 seconds, so several 10s of Joules involved.

[Marcelo Rodrigues]

Re: Shock in watts?

"Mine runs at 0.8J. I'd rate it about 6 on the psychological damage scale, or "not doing that again, even for beer"."

Here, a pint for you!

BZZZZT!

Attaboy.

[Anonymous Coward]

s/afflict/inflict

[Anonymous C0ward]

His hovercraft

It's full of them.

[handleoclast]

Electrophorus electricus

Should, of course, be Electrophorus electricus. Please respect scientific typographic conventions. Species and genus should be italicised.

[ilmari]

The 46mA is actually impressively strong. It's in the potential death territory (but not certain death, far from it), if the shock went across a heart instead if through an arm.

[Tromos]

960 Ohms

You can tell by the white, blue and brown bands on the eel.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: 960 Ohms

Ah, but did it have a gold band for 5% tolerance?

Experimental error should be properly characterised...

[Stratman]

Re: 960 Ohms

"Ah, but did it have a gold band for 5% tolerance?

I'm guessing an electric eel annoyed enough to zap is extremely intolerant.

[LaFin]

Re: 960 Ohms

and the replaceable fuses! They swap them out every year for higher ratings! Got to watch out for those 12Amp-ers!

[FSM]

Typo?

"Last year, he proved that eels could jump [start a car!]"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Typo?

Unfortunately around 40 years ago a pioneering science show produced by the BBC was mistaken for a new form of oddball comedy ... had people taken it seriously then perhaps we would have solved the problems of carbon fuel based transport and we'd all be traveling in the electrically powered hovercraft that they wanted to publicize using a natural supply of electricity. Sadly they did receive the support they needed to enable them to size reduce the power supply leading to the dismissive comment that "my hovercraft is full of eels".

[Not also known as SC]

Mad - he was furious!

He'd actually dropped his car keys in the tank and didn't want to admit to it in front of his colleagues. This was the only way to fish them out without any one realising!

[Version 1.0]

Re: Mad - he was furious!

He was recharging the key fob?

[Stevie]

Bah!

Jumping electric eels?

Missed a trick then. Should have called Finless "Jehosaphat".

[LaFin]

Their mating must be Eelectrical!! #batteriesincluded!

[ARGO]

"published in Current Biology"

How apt.

[herman]

The eels made him teacher of writhing and reeling.

[Alister]

The eels made him teacher of writhing and reeling.

and the different branches of arithmetic:

ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision.

[Anonymous Coward]

Electrophorus Electricus

Best latin name ever!!!

NB, I love speaking Latin, I must pay a visit there sometime.

[Paul Woodhouse]

so the new Reg unit is going to be 3.9Watts = 1 eel

???

[Patched Out]

"3.9Watts = 1 eel"

A thumbs up for that. Count it as my vote for adoption of this new standard - though it may need to be scaled up for a full size eel. Get back to your research Mr. Catania and post back with your results for an average-size adult eel.