Listening Post: Brain power

The big news stories are hard to miss; they’re on every channel, every hour. And then they’re gone–poof–the media eye moves on. Whether they had any ultimate or lasting importance is a job left to  historians. But the little stories–easy to overlook, tucked away inside section C, relegated to odd journals, specialty blogs–that’s where I tend to find the things that interest me most, and if I may say so–are most often the stories of things that will actually change the world we live in.

The one that caught my eye this week got some tier 2 media attention via CBC’s science program Quirks and Quarks. Looked at from one perspective, it’s just the story of an incremental advance in medical device technology. The research team of MIT’s Dr. Rahul Sarpeshkar has come up with a small low-power fuel cell that generates electricity the same way the body fuels itself, by oxidizing sugar. Implanted in the body, it takes in glucose-rich body fluids, and puts out electricity (along with waste products that can be handled naturally by the body). Robust enough to operate for decades, small enough to function unobtrusively anywhere in the body, powerful enough to accomplish medically useful work, and able to be fabricated on standard microchip manufacturing equipment.

The current device has an output around 100 microwatts, using cerebrospinal fluid for its fuel source. That doesn’t sound like a lot, unless you consider my favorite fun fact of the week (thanks, Dr.  Sarpeshkar), the average brain runs on 14.6 watts. The device is powerful enough to run a paralysis implant that turns motor neuron impulses into computer commands, or to power a heart pacemaker, or a cochlear implant for the hearing-impaired. It’s enough to help control the trembling of a Parkinson’s patient, or to perpetually power many other medical devices now in production or yet to be invented.

Simply put, this will change a lot of lives–maybe yours, maybe mine, someone we know–almost certainly. Imagine a world where this story was front page above the fold, and the latest celebrity faux pas, or the analysis of the polling impact of the latest attack ads was tucked into the back.

Add your own game-changing story brought forward from the back pages in a comment below.

Tags: listeningpost