

Your body, the battery: Powering gadgets from human “biofuel” - cyang08
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/07/your-body-the-battery-powering-gadgets-from-human-biofuel/

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ChuckMcM
I'm surprised they don't mention methane. Given that a natural byproduct of
e.coli is methane as it reduces organic waste in your intestine, a fuel cell
which could transfer oxygen from the blood and methane from the bowel would
potentially generate milliwatt or two. As I recall there was some work on a
methane recapture facility for grazing animals as a way of powering remote
monitoring as well. Easy to joke about too, "Honey, pull my finger, I need to
charge my phone."

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Retric
Messing with the gut is really dangerous, your probably far better off just
harvesting some sugars from the blood stream than trying to use methane.

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jononor
Messing with the blood is not danger-free either. Wrong blood-sugar levels or
acidity, bloodclots, gas-bubbles...

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klean92
Slightly off-topic, but i find impressive that with the same 2,500 calories
needed to power daily my moderately used smartphone, my body can walk, go up
the stairs, lift heavy objects, do math, laugh and think.

Way to go to match the efficiency of the human body.

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snaily
I can't make sense of this statement in the article - it seems to be off by
two orders of magnitude.

A typical smartphone battery (Xiaomi Mi4i) is specified at 3.12Ah @ 4.4V.
Multiplying, we get an energy content of about 50 kilojoules, which is about
1/200th of the a typical daily human energy requirement (10MJ).

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imh
Best diet ever. I wonder how many people would abuse this and crank everything
up to 11 just to burn calories.

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TeMPOraL
Assuming just for a second that they could do it relatively safely, why
shouldn't they?

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zitterbewegung
Possibly because they will figure out a way to bypass any safety requirements
and maybe hurt themselves which usually happens with most technology. People
will attempt to dive into rushing water when they lose their phones.

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totony
If they're going to hurt themselves voluntarily, I am of the opinion that we
should let them

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vonwong
I can't wait for this stuff to come out! It'll be so neat.

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woliveirajr
How can no one mention Matrix?

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ageofwant
I've seen this documentary, comes in three parts, the fist one is great, the
other two less so. I seem to recall a particularly vexing cave rave scene,
which, to this day, makes no particular sense to me. As you were.

