thequantumlife:

Cockroach Fuel Cell: Our New Energy Frontier?

As if we didn’t have enough phobias about creepy crawly cockroaches, now they’re generating energy thanks to scientist Daniel Scherson and his colleagues. No, this is not preparation for a sci-fi movie where cockroach robots build a new society; it’s a quest for renewable energy wherever it may be. Scherson’s team inserted a miniature fuel cell into a living false death’s head cockroach—yes, that’s actually its name—that converts natural sugars from the cockroach and oxygen from the air into electricity.

To get technical for a moment, the implanted biofuel cell uses a sugar called trehalose from the cockroach itself, and oxygen from the air without impairing any of their functioning organs, according to the researchers. We can only surmise that it may be a bit uncomfortable. While it creates a less dramatic headline, the same process worked when scientists tried it with a shiitake mushroom.

That is really really cool.