Researchers Generate Electricity From Viruses 85
First time accepted submitter toomuchtogrok writes "Imagine charging your phone as you walk, thanks to a paper-thin generator embedded in the sole of your shoe. This futuristic scenario is now a little closer to reality. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a way to generate power using harmless viruses that convert mechanical energy into electricity. The scientists tested their approach by creating a generator that produces enough current to operate a small liquid-crystal display. It works by tapping a finger on a postage stamp-sized electrode coated with specially engineered viruses. The viruses convert the force of the tap into an electric charge."
It's a good thing .... (Score:1, Funny)
it's a good thing viruses don't mutate.
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it's a good thing viruses don't mutate.
According to TFA It's a bacteriophage, meaning it only infects bacteria. Using viruses for nanotechnology isn't really new; a type of gold-coated bacteriophage nanowire was designed by an MIT team a few years back.
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I'd mod you up if I could, you're absolutely right. Even if a bacteriophage can't directly harm humans it could potentially wreak havoc on the microbial ecosystem that forms the foundation on which all complex life depends. The risk is mitigated though by the fact that at least bacteria can (probably) evolve rapidly enough to avoid major problems, unlike complex life that operates several orders of magnitudes slower.
Still, I think these sorts of stories highlight the fact that there's a certain recklessne
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it's a good thing viruses don't mutate.
What, instead of electricity, they would start producing magnetism?
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Or alcohol!
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you mean like these
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetotactic_bacteria [wikipedia.org]
Midichlorians (Score:5, Insightful)
I was thinking of Midichlorians, when I read it but I have no idea where I got it from I do not remember it any of the three Star War Movies.
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I do not remember it any of the three Star War Movies.
Weren't there 6 movies?
Re:Midichlorians (Score:5, Funny)
No, only 3. Similarly, it's sad they never made a third Godfather movie, or a sequel to the Matrix.
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There was only a series of Matrix cartoons that ranged from slightly interesting to awesome.
There was also that fan-film that ended with a giant mech battle and neo dying.
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I just wish they would make a prequel. or are they considering the terminator series the prequel.
And hopefully they use a director that has some skills, not impressed with the Washowski brothers after the first movie.
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*waves hand* These are not the movies you're looking for.
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Like the other guy said, there are only 3 Star Wars movies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CfBhi6qqFLA [youtube.com]
"Why are you doing this to us!??!!?"
"Fifty nine minutes!!!"
--
BMO
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Not in any fictional universes? That's a pretty bold statement.
I just thought up a universe where Midichlorians are 3ft tall bacteriophage that juggle their time between their successful techno-synth-pop garage band and their secret superhero team that fights 50ft space amoeba.
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Midichlorians? Not sure what that is.
That's probably "mitochondria", only coming from a truly atrocious speller.
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Of course, if your war movies have only three stars, there won't be any Midichlorians in them. You know, Midichlorians are expensive, they are only used in war movies which have at least four stars.
Carbon Neutral (Score:1)
Makes sense. About time Microsoft capitalized on this to go carbon neutral.
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he is referring to the numerous ms computer viruses instead of organic ones
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Generating electricity (Score:4, Interesting)
Weren't we supposed to have electricity generation from walking on sidewalks, too?
It sucks getting older, and realizing that these stores come out every few years.
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The idea of generating power from your shoes is a silly one. Are you going to run wires from your shoes to the pocket your phone is in?
That dumb idea aside, this is just another method of electricity generation; you could likely produce the same amount of power with piezoelectrics for a lot cheaper.
Remember self-winding wristwatches?
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"The idea of generating power from your shoes is a silly one. Are you going to run wires from your shoes to the pocket your phone is in?"
No, you use step up transformers and convert the electricity to thousands of volts and send it up the legs of the person wearing the shoes.
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Every hair on your body would stand on end. That might be a tad uncomfortable (although at the miniscule amperages all you would feel would be your hair standing on end).
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The idea of generating power from your shoes is a silly one. Are you going to run wires from your shoes to the pocket your phone is in?
But you don't necessarily need wires. You could have a small battery, say the size of an SD card, in the sole of the shoe. Once a similar battery in your phone is low on juice, you'd swap it for the one that lived in the sole of your shoe for the last 6h.
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Whatever... (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, let's use the most inefficient means possible to extract energy from the human body. I'm still waiting for the inductive charger powered by a fuel cell that runs off my blood sugar. You can sit in your chair, talk on the phone, and still lose weight.
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Why this is better than existing piezo (Score:5, Informative)
That question sadly went unanswered in the summary, but is discussed in the article. The viruses are preferable because making existing piezoelectrics is apparently difficult and requires toxic chemicals, while these viruses are self-replicating bacteriophages. They are also under the right conditions self-organizing, making the creation of piezo film easy by comparison. Looks like there's a long way to go to get a decent amount of electricity out of them, though.
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Yea it's damn tought to make a piezo generator w/o toxic compounds. All that's required is a quartz crystal and conductive pickups as we've done for years (computer timing circuits/clocks anyone?) and NO I didn't RTFA but it sounds like there's lots of bias about Piezo generators.
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I wondered a bit about that myself, but my intent was only to report what was missing from the summary. Is quartz used as a generator? I know it's often used as a timing oscillator, but if my understanding is correct it requires a bit of power to do so.
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"Looks like there's a long way to go to get a decent amount of electricity out of them, though."
From what I understand (not much) from the article, the virii are only part of the conversion process--through some biological equivalent of a piezoelectric device. So this still does NOT address the problem that the military encountered with piezoelectric generators built into soldiers footwear, primarily that the soldier him/herself provides the actual energy and that turned out bad for the soldiers. The soldie
Humans are a horrible power source (Score:4, Informative)
We're terrible at powering anything. We have poor motivation, work horrible hours and worst of all: we have freedom of choice.
I doubt we're gonna make ourselves tired just to power our phone, when your phone adapter doesn't even show up on your electricity bill, because it's so insignificant.
It's sad that they always aim at the lowest energy consumer in my household: my puny 1 W phone, instead of my 1000 W laundry machine, my 150 W fridge, my 300 W computer, or the lights in the house, which add up to at least 250 W (yes, I use energy saving lights).
One wind turbine would probably be the equivalent of all of London jumping around on these shoes.
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And yet, there you sit, probably throwing off 70-90 watts of thermal. Perhaps if you'd just wear the perfectly insulated clothing made of 100% efficient heat to electricity conversion material, all would be well.
Re:Humans are a horrible power source (Score:4, Informative)
70 Watts of thermal, available at 37 C, and at an ambient temperature of 20 C (room temperature) would give you a whopping 5 W of electric, assuming you achieve maximum Carnot efficiency (which you won't).
100% efficient heat to electricity conversion has a huge potential. In power stations... but not really in clothing.
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They're not aiming at the lowest energy consumer. Those low-energy devices are just about the only things that can be powered by human power. During testing for the Gossamer Albatross [wikipedia.org], Paul MacCready found that a fit athlete could generate a bit
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...It's sad that they always aim at the lowest energy consumer in my household: my puny 1 W phone
Wouldn't the purpose be to be able to power your phone while you're far away from a convenient outlet or don't have your adapter handy? Some people do travel, go hiking, walk, enjoy live, ...
I can see where this is headed.... (Score:3)
Infect humans with virus.
Place humans in a sustainability tube filled with goo, hook up wires and feeding tubes.
generate electricity to power the robot society after the uprising.
Yeah, I don't see this as a good idea.
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OR, lighting from the fingertips like Johnny in that 1980s show I can't recall the name of!
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Aha misfits of science
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hT5cGnk2DY [youtube.com]
Damn I miss the 80s.
Specially Troll (Score:3)
Please remove "specially" from the phrase "specially engineered viruses". We all understand that engineered viruses are very special.
"Specially": it's not just redundant, it has a self-congratulatory tone I find annoying.
Sincerely, the Specially Troll
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And now... an NBC Very Special Virus.
NBC Very Special Virus (Score:2)
Indeed.
Memo to self: NBC has a self-congratulatory tone I find annoying.
- S.T.
Downfall: anti-virus software (Score:2, Funny)
alternative uses (Score:1)
Now we know (Score:1)
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Windows (Score:2)
So does this mean a Windows computer can now be self-powered?
Ass Power (Score:2)
Harmless Virius? Phoenix disease! (Score:2)
That's what the scientists thought in the "Blackjack 21" anime. They created a virius that could produce electricity to run an artifical heart. They ended up creating the incurable Phoenix disease. Dr. Blackjack found the cure just in time.