Physics Buzz

Just about everything that's considered a "gadget" these days—from your phone to your laptop to the wireless earbuds Apple's forcing you to buy—runs on lithium-ion batteries. They're cheap, powerful for their weight, and can go through a few thousand charge cycles before wearing down, properties which have earned them their title as the champion workhorses of the portable digital age. New and better technologies are always on the horizon, though:  lithium-oxygen  batteries promise to be the next big thing, with the potential to store fifteen times the energy of their lithium-ion counterparts. There are still some kinks that need to be ironed out before the technology is viable, but scientists may have just overcome one of the biggest hurdles between us and this exciting new tech. The discovery comes from a ubiquitous but surprising source: red blood cells.

Originally published: Feb 28 2014 - 4:30pm, Inside Science News Service By: Emily Lewis, ISNS Contributor Researchers are charged up about biobatteries, devices able to harness common biological processes to generate electricity. Most biobatteries are unable to generate large amounts of power, but researchers recently developed a prototype version that has the potential to be lighter and more powerful than the batteries typically found in today's portable electronic devices, including smartphones. In the body, sugar is converted into energy in a process called metabolism, which decomposes sugar into carbon dioxide and water while releasing electrons. Biobatteries produce energy though the same conversion process by capturing the electrons that are generated in the decomposition of sugar with the same tools that the body uses. Because biobatteries use materials that are biologically based, they are renewable and non-toxic, making them an attractive alternative to traditional