Urine-powered Battery Developed

[beam me up scottie]

Urine-powered battery developed

Physicists in Singapore have succeeded in creating the first paper battery that generates electricity from urine. This new battery will be the perfect power source for cheap, disposable healthcare test-kits for diseases such as diabetes. This research is published today in the Institute of Physics’ Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering.
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Scientists in research groups around the world are trying to design ever smaller “biochips” that can test for a variety of diseases at once, give instant results, and, crucially, can be mass produced cheaply. But until now, no one has been able to solve the problem of finding a power source as small and as cheap to fabricate as the detection technology itself.

Led by Dr Ki Bang Lee, a research team at Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) have developed a paper battery that is small, cheap to fabricate, and which ingeniously uses the fluid being tested (urine) as the power source for the device doing the testing.

The chemical composition of urine is widely used as a way of testing for tell-tale signs of various diseases and also as an indicator of a person’s general state of health. The concentration of glucose in urine is a useful diagnostic tool for diabetics. The lead researcher, Dr Lee, envisions a world where people will easily be able to monitor their health at home using disposable test-kits that don’t need lithium batteries or external power sources.

http://www.physorg.com/news5805.html

[Lautremont]

1. If you eat asparagus, does the battery smell funny?

[beam me up scottie]

2. You mean

does it pass the smell test?
:evilgrin:

[damntexdem]

7. Please, how shocking!

Do you get a charge out of pissing us off?

[salvorhardin]

3. Now that's neat engineering! n/t

[Celebration]

4. ok this is weird

To check urine for glucose, all you have to do is stick a strip in the urine and compare the colors. No battery needed. But if I am getting sick of changing batteries on my wireless mouse...........(ok I won't say it) What I am saying is that he is going to have to think of some other applications.

[ltfranklin]

5. Can't wait till they make a cell-phone battery.

"So I told him that...hold on, Scotty, the cell's about to die...<Ziiiiiiiiip>"

[damntexdem]

8. Just be careful how you ...

power the microphone at the front of the auditorium.

[ltfranklin]

9. It certainly would put the "P" in Power!

[A Simple Game]

6. So if you don't like your test results,

you can literally say piss on it?