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Engineers Create Flexible Battery That Runs On Organ Movement
A tiny, patch-like battery that uses the natural movement of organs such as the heart or lungs to generate electricity inside the human body has been developed by engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
A paper describing the device was recently published online in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.
The device, about the size of a stamp, is made up of a metal nanoribbon embedded in ultra-thin, flexible plastic material that’s “almost like Saran Wrap,” lead author and University of Illinois material scientist John Rogers told Popular Mechanics. “It can cling to the surface of an organ.”
Many artificial devices – pacemakers for treating irregular heartbeats or nerve stimulators for treating Parkinson’s, for instance – use batteries that run out after a few years. The new invention could one day take over for such batteries and save patients the repetitive, painful and expensive surgeries needed to replace their expired batteries.
The device works on the principle of piezoelectricity, where a metal or metal composite – lead zirconate titanate, in this case – generates electricity under mechanical stress. The device can generate up to 8 volts of electricity as it bends and stretches with the movement of the heart, lungs or diaphragm it is implanted upon.
It can generate more electricity than needed by conventional implants, the authors wrote. Its flexible design also ensures that it harvests power from the organ without hampering or adding strain to the organ’s movements.
The Illinois team, along with doctors at the University of Arizona, surgically implanted the device onto the organs of live sheep, cows and pigs. Their most recent prototypes were able to generate three to five times more electricity than previous trials in living animals.
“In addition to uses on internal organs, the same types of systems can be implemented in skin-mounted configurations for health/wellness monitors or non-biomedical devices,” the authors wrote.
The device could also be used one day to harvest energy from arm or leg muscles, or skin cells, or “pretty much anything that moves,” Rogers said.
Although the device prototypes have been tested for their capacity for only a few hours, Rogers’ team is working on testing and checking their electric output over longer time periods. They are also working on additional tests to make sure it is safe and compatible for long-term use inside the human body.
The challenge would be to make the batteries last longer than the lifetime of current pacemaker batteries, which can last for 5 to 10 years without needing to be replaced.
Rogers’ previous work includes a similar “tattoo” patch to monitor patients’ heart and brain activity, and the world’s first flexible lithium-ion battery.
Source: Ranjini Raghunath for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online
Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113055062/battery-implant-powered-by-body-organs-012614/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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