Even if you haven’t seen The Matrix or its sequels, you most likely know the basic premise of the movie: It’s the distant future, and intelligent machines rule the world, having learned to harness an omnipresent and previously underutilized source of electrical power—humans. The machines “grow” people in vast industrial farms and siphon off the small current of electricity generated by the bodies. You, me—we are battery.
Thankfully, civilization hasn’t advanced quite so far. But there’s a scrap of truth to this scenario: Living cells and their multicellular conglomerates (people) do generate a slight electric current. Only now are scientists figuring out how to plug into this resource. The advantages are tantalizing.
A biological fuel cell could generate electricity directly, without the polluting by-products associated with fossil-fuel combustion, and at safe body temperatures. A biological battery also holds the promise of being very small in size, a boon in an age of ever-shrinking electronic devices.
