15 Ways Science Will Kill Us All

By Queuebot in Science & Tech on Jan 19, 2010 at 10:14 am

Science is wonderful of course, but it can also be vaguely terrifying if you take things to their logical (or not so logical) conclusions. Take batteries that run on human blood:

So scientists have developed a battery that is powered by human blood. The idea is a cybernetic power source, to keep your pacemaker or whatever running. But, lets think about this for a second…what do we have way too much of on this planet? People. And what do we have way too little of? Power. A battery that runs on human blood is an easy fix for both of them. Jonathan Swift would be proud of this, screw eating the poor, lets just power all our gadgets with them.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by redsfaithful.

Tags: apocalypse, doomsday, science

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Gauldar
Jan 19th, 2010 at 10:36 am
I’m getting a mental image of people walking around with tattoos that say “Energizer”.
pyrit
Jan 19th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Lessee, … Is it A positive to B negative? Or the other way around. I can never remember…
BJN
Jan 19th, 2010 at 11:49 am
It’s not science that will kill us all, it’s stupidity and superstition.

Only a fool who thinks that The Matrix is a documentary could envision enslavement of humans as an energy resource. Ever hear of thermodynamics? You have to put more energy into feeding and maintaining your imagined human batteries than you’d get back – no matter how efficient the technology. And I’ll bet the technology isn’t very efficient. But I imagine that even an inefficient battery that doesn’t require surgical replacement would be very desirable for pacemaker users and other implantable medical devices.
renderanything
Jan 19th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
My beard is not foolish, I get compliments about its awesomeness quite frequently.
mbtshoes
Jan 19th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
mbt uk
Nicholas Dollak
Jan 20th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
I understand the article was written with tongue firmly ensconced in cheek. But BJN brings up some very valid points, esp. regarding thermodynamics. If this battery exists, it may prove to be a very effective means of powering a pacemaker. The energy it produces would be minimal, and what goes into the pacemaker would be less than what went into the battery, but if it does its job with only the passing blood to power it, that’s fine.

For a number of years I’ve toyed with the idea of a children’s playground wired (safely, of course) to a storage battery. The movement of the equipment, and even the movement of the children’s feet on certain surfaces could be converted to electrical energy, just like a windmill generator. For anyone who’s wanted to “harness that energy” while watching kids at play…
Will_H
Jan 23rd, 2010 at 11:09 am
@Nicholas: It doesn’t charge batteries, but it is storing potential energy, in an even more fundamental form… http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/000446.html
Video Game Dork
Jan 23rd, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Was going to say what BJN did, about the body needing more energy that it would provide to a blood-utilizing battery.

But that makes me wonder… would having a blood-battery in you make you burn more calories naturally?

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