No really, it's true. Snails as a power source. Handy, when you think about it. Just pick it up and stick it where you need it. Ideal for lighting those hard to reach areas. The applications are staggering. Use one to power your mp3 player, attaches directly to your skin for when you go jogging. Compact, biodegradable, disposes with a satisfying crunch. The developers mention spy cameras as a potential usage.
Hope they're not planning to spy on France.
The world's first "electrified snail" has joined the menagerie of cockroaches, rats, rabbits and other animals previously implanted with biofuel cells that generate electricity — perhaps for future spy cameras, eavesdropping microphones and other electronics — from natural sugar in their bodies.
Scientists are describing how their new biofuel cell worked for months in a free-living snail in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
"The snail with the implanted biofuel cell will be able to operate in a natural environment, producing sustainable electrical micropower for activating various bioelectronic devices," the authors of a report in Journal of the American Chemical Society say.
To turn a living snail into a power source, the researchers made two small holes in its shell and inserted high-tech electrodes made from compressed carbon nanotubes. They coated the highly conductive material with enzymes, which foster chemical reactions in animals' bodies.
Importantly, the long-lasting enzymes could generate electricity again and again after the scientists fed and rested what they termed the "electrified" snail, which lived freely for several months with the implanted fuel cell.
Source: American Chemical Society
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