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Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University presented their work on batteries powered by non-toxic melanin pigments at the American Chemical Society annual meeting. These batteries do not contain the typical toxic metals found in regular batteries, so they would be safer to use in medical devices that are meant to enter the body.
Besides their role in skin pigment, one of the things melanins are good at is attaching to metals, which is known as metal chelation.
'We thought, if they have this kind of electron exchange capability and this kind of cation chelation capability, then that really is what a battery material is in its essence,' Bettinger said at a press conference. 'We have really leveraged those existing properties in a different context and made this new invention.'
They found that their batteries can deliver 5 to 10 mW of power over a span of about 18 hours, which is optimal for powering ingestible medical devices that take about 20 hours to pass through the body.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 31 2016, @02:34AM
If you prefer to work at night rather than have to work at night, you may have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome.
By contrast my father had the Advanced kind, as he got out of bed at 5:00 until he was too old and sick to get out of bed anymore.
The best way to diagnose these is to swallow a thermometer that reports your core temperature via radio. When your body thinks it should be sleeping, its temperature goes down. When it's time to arise, the temp goes back up.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2016, @03:22AM
Keep your government-mandated implants out of my stomach! Oh sure you say they're not mandated, but if you try to decline medical treatment, they declare you insane, and force you to swallow the radio tracking device anyway. The US Department of Labor is going to make sure you get the proper job placement, day or night, and they're going to use Obamacare to do it!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday August 31 2016, @05:52AM
Fascinating. I have been a night owl all of my life. Sunup, eyes close, sundown and I'm wide awake. Struggled all through school with this and have worked swing and graveyard most of my life because of it.
Makes social life a bit more difficult, but in general it always made me a little more money as night jobs tend to pay a bit better because no one wants to work them.
I struggled with day jobs. I would consider it highly likely this applies to me. Never knew I might have a disorder, I just liked the nighttime! Of course, I don't think I want to be cured at this point (if that's possible at all, I didn't read all of the description I Googled.) as I'm 57 and I rather enjoy empty streets coming home from work.
Quite interesting, thank you Michael.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 31 2016, @09:55PM
http://www.circadiandisorders.org/ [circadiandisorders.org]
Treatments have been proposed for it but none have proved to be of lasting value. The best advice I can give someone is to work at night, which you already do.
I'm a night owl too but I also have a very hard time sticking to a specific schedule.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]