@clive NewScientist can be pretty woo-woo but I haven't checked to see whether there's been peer review...it sounds possible because electricity is found in many organisms...

@clive
This feels familiar...

@clive

Do algae dream of electric tweets?

@clive I'm sorry, you realize this is a key component for either The Matrix or Soylent Green, right? This won't end well. Mark my words!

@clive that's wild!

@clive I have to wonder now whether this would work with green algae, etc.

@clive @dralgaegirl

@clive *nods maniacally* " Yesssss"

@clive bionic algae!

@clive omg that's so fucking dope!

@clive can we call this the Fleischmann–Pond-effect (too soon?)

@clive that is amazing

@clive

> producing the electrons

This is what photosynthesis does, amirite?

@clive
Crazy, and beautiful! I love this :) Makes me wish I was better at making stuff like this myself, I'd love to see it working.

@clive
This interests me. I can order algae online and the anode was aluminum. What was the cathode material? I didn't see it in the article.

@clive holy moley this is incredible

@clive Before I got too excited I’d want to see a mass spec of the solution and the before/after weights of the electrodes to be sure it’s not just a normal redox reaction, and the aluminium is slowly being consumed.

I’d wager considerable money that it’s something like that going on.

@clive with today low power micro controllers, this needs to be pushed harder.

@clive fascinating #sciencemastodon

@clive thanks for the blog, although I just rabbit holed with the Dall-E2
Not necessarily a bad thing.

@clive Next up:
artificial intelligence discovers humans could be used as cheap batteries 🤪

@clive
This is basic biology. Photosynthesis by chlorophyll results in a photon of light producing a hydrogen ion and an electron in a process referred to as charge separation. It is these free electrons that are causing an electric current when algae are exposed to sunlight.

@clive

Certainly a research area, it would be worthwhile to sacrifice ones life to.

@clive

From the article: "computational workload, which required 0.3 microwatts of power, and 15 minutes of standby, which required 0.24 microwatts."
That's the amount of power you can get from a literal hamster wheel after the hamster is dead and it only moves when the wind blows or even the cheapest fotovoltaic cell placed in shade. I mean, c'mon.

@clive Well, you know, like photosynthesis...?

@clive Incredible. And a technology so young can only have greater potential as it matures.

@clive Now lets try with an algea big as the Eiffel Tower for a standard Raspberry doing a ping to 8.8.8.8

@clive

this is AMAZING with enormous implications especially in disaster, emergency, and war-impacted settings and for persons with needs to use and store healthcare items during power outages (example ventilators and insulin stored in refrigerators). #Healthcare #Disability #PublicHealth

@clive solarpunk af

The first thing one should think upon seeing something like this is that it's either a mistake or outright fraud, until it's independently reproduced.

@clive I live on a floating Algea lake. This could be a wonderful source of energy… maybe… very exciting!