But how about using this to create real energizer bunnies!

With several of these devices implanted and connected to versatile energy transmission devices (obviously through robust and very durable energy couplings, able to withstand the full range of human activities), you could generate enough energy to power a heated thermal vest to keep warm in cold conditions.

Or you could just wear a jumper ....

Mines the all natural fibre (and cheap) coat, thanks.

... more importantly - does this mean shooting bolts of lightning from my fingertips?

She's electric, got a family full of eccentrics

Done things i never expected, and i need more time...

Plug the old wife in at the mains and she can pay the phone bill while she natters.

Any lip and just reverse the current flow ;-)

Ain't technology wonderful.

<pedant> Excluding the 5p connection charge, its 2p a min to other landlines on BT, so having both parties wired up at 1p/hour makes the call free. If its a fat burd, might even make a profit </pedant>

Except you'd feel the cold more, 'cos you'd burnt all of your insulating subcutaneous body fat...

So, if you could wank enough to power a device to look at porn on the web, how do you power up the device without the porn to look at?

With this sort of uber tech the Welsh bobbies wouldn't need taser guns to keep the local sheep in line.

imagine the amount of lecy we could get of the Average American, so much blubber, so much power!

to welcome our eel/human hybrid overlords.

So you mean I can charge my phone using my blubber? Bring it on.

think of the possibilities!

you could power an electric bike and really burn fat.

Cops could have built in tazers.

under-skin LEDs

Nah, doesn't sound like there will be enough power for flashing on the bathroom wall.

... there's a way. So what if women got the idea that they could implant ... umm ... arousal devices powered from their implanted 'leccy-eel power generatiors? They could slim and have fun at the same time!

I bet Paris would want to be a Guinea Pig ..... well, not an actual small furry animal, but, you know, a testing candidate .... although whether or not she's been overly affectionate with small furry animals is probably a matter of debate ....

Let's face it, it was always a tad difficult to sneak up on someone while holding a Van der Graaf generator and standing on a plastic box.

In this new brighter future, the zap finger of death can be produced merely by thinking about it.

Just out of interest, anyone here know why it is that school-standard grey flannel trousers enhance the effect on the zappee?

What a shocking idea!

Power to the people ... ???

Is used in signaling between nerve cells. Energy is produced from it by breaking the phosphate bonds. When all the phosphate bonds have been broken, the adenosine (if I'm remembering this correctly) migrates back along the signal path to the preceding nerve/neuron and inhibits it from firing, as the receiving cell (the one that has released the adenosine) has no resources left to deal with any input. One of the ways in which caffeine works in the body is by binding onto adenosine receptor sites, without inhibiting the cell, thereby blocking adenosine from other cells from binding, which allows that nerve/neuron to keep firing.

All of which leads me to wonder if people with such implants will be restricted from consuming anything caffeinated.

It should be obligitary for everybody to have such cells implanted in their chest wired up to a kind of biological rfid chip keyed to the persons DNA. Whenever a crime was committed the police could simply remote activate the cells of the person with the offending dna, producing a severe tazing effect. The perpetrator could be kept incapactiated until local police had located and arrested them. For minor crimes a remote tazong might be sufficient as a punishment thus saving both the police's and the court's.

You know, this invention of subcutaneous 'leccy-eel power generation and ideas for associated implanted devices (including the female arousal type) could spawn an entirely new field of endeavour. Of course, this field would need a name. I suggest we call it .... "Twat-a-tronics".

Alright, alright, I'm going.

unless the power is somewhere between a taser and the emperor in star wars.

Humans - now just a light-bulb with eyes...

We'll all end up smacking the stuffing out of divers with scary little girls chasing after us with huge syringes.

Reduce their carbon footprint by being self sufficient in energy and just harvest the power from their diners as they munch through their greasy burgers.

Go a step further and they can absorb the grease off their skins and re-use it in the fryers.

Great idea!

Quick thought: Mobile ITX will be 7W, which is 23,334 times what one 4mm cube can create.

That's still only 0.001493376 cubic meters (1.5ltrs) of properly harnessed fat that'll be needed! I'm pretty sure that I've got more than that spare over my body (not much more though, ladies :P) - so with a bit of this new bio-tech stuff they're telling me that I could turn my fat into Quake-3 capable levels of computing power?!

Which would be able to use my non-computing downtime to zap my muscles and gradually make me a bit musclier etc?

Now we just need a decent retinal implant, camera implants for visual feedback and a high-fat diet to keep it all running and we'll have JC Dentons and AR-equipped athletes running about!

I wonder if all that energy discharging around you would tickle?

Shades because his vision is augmented.

Just imagine, if we combine these with luciferase (I think that's the enzyme in fireflies) generating cells, you ought to be able to embed a watch directly into your wrist.

hehe... this is how "The Matrix" may have started...

Sure, maybe you can't SAVE money, but if it means I get to eat bacon cheeseburgers for free without gaining weight, I'm all for it!

In other news, when told that another researcher had tried to steal their glory, the professors shook their fists, and said, "Eel be sorry!"

*grabs coat and leaves, whistling 'electric avenue'*

From now on, it's not safe anymore to laugh at Capt Cyborg to his face --- you know he'll be the first to install this, and you'll know he did it when he zaps you in anger.

I've made my joke

And after they do that, they impersonate Argon from a certain Kentucky Fried Movie sketch, & use the fat from the fryers, to run their delivery vans on...