So, the Swiss want to install a turbine near your heart. Hey, no way that can go wrong, right? Right?
Alois Pfenniger doesn’t think so, so he built a turbine that can be installed to power pacemakers and other equipment we install in people who have congenital heart problems (or just refuse to get on the exerbike).
It’s not a bad idea, at least on paper: it would remove the need to open somebody up every time you needed to swap out the batteries or to have a power jack hanging out of your flesh like some sort of horrific ’80s cyberpunk gaming supplement cover art.
On the other hand, this thing might also cause blood clots, so you won’t be powering that drug pump with your heartbeat just yet. Then again, as it’s the least disgusting and creepy method of leeching electrical power off the human body yet patented, we hope he gets it right. We don’t trust some of the guys working in this field not to install something and take a kidney as a tip.
[ via the blood pumps at IEEE Spectrum ]