Human Cell Electrical Fields Are As Powerful As Lightning Bolts

[Oneironaut Zero]

Haha. And to think, I came across this article after watching about 20minutes worth of Infamous footage.

[slash112]

wow, do you think that there might be a chance of taking the electrical field and somehow using it, as in a source of energy? and would that have any effect on the body? because how good would that be if they could figure a way of somehow taking the electrical energy and putting it to use, without it badly effecting the body.

[Xei]

Looks like rubbish, the only Google result for internal electric fields inside cells is that article. And no you couldn't use it as a source of energy, nor could you use any aspect of the human metabolism as a source of energy, because humans simply aren't a source of energy; they are an energy sink. You put food energy in and unusable energy comes out.

[slash112]

Looks like rubbish, the only Google result for internal electric fields inside cells is that article. And no you couldn't use it as a source of energy, nor could you use any aspect of the human metabolism as a source of energy, because humans simply aren't a source of energy; they are an energy sink. You put food energy in and unusable energy comes out. dam, oh well. but a human body could be used as an energy source, heat source, for example, if you were to put thermocouples around your body it would generate a bit of electricity.

[Xei]

No, because you'd have to put energy in to the human in the first place. You're not 'generating' anything. You might as well just burn the food.

[wendylove]

Article sounds rubbish. Anyway, back to the discussion of using bodies as energy sources. The matrix is rubbish. I don't see how they can use humans for heat as they need to get a food source and I don't see how using dead people to fuel humans will actually be able to work in the long run. Solar power or geothermal vents would be a better option. I wonder why the computer didn't just launch themselves into space.

[Black_Eagle]

I wonder why the computer didn't just launch themselves into space. Because of Operation Darkstorm and its effects. The humans, in a desperate attempt to deprive the machines of their energy source, blotted out the sun with nanomachines that also acts as an EMP, effectively crushing any chance for escape.

[Xei]

It's true, the crux of the plot of The Matrix makes no sense whatsoever in it's published form; you can't use human beings as batteries. That was however an oversimplification (or perhaps creation of a bolder metaphor) of the original plot (for U.S. audiences most likely...), in which the machines were using the giant collective neural network as a medium for computation.

[DuB]

This article referenced at the bottom of that link is somewhat more informative: Voltage-sensitive dyes are not new. For decades, neuroscientists have used them to measure voltages across cell membranes in studies of how nerve cells generate and respond to electrical charges. But Kopelman says that it's not possible to control the placement of these dyes in cells. They are hydrophobic and aggregate in cell membranes, so it has not been possible to use them to study the cytosol, the bulk of the interior of the cell. Kopelman also says that these dyes might be reacting with enzymes and other molecules in cells. His encapsulated dyes aren't hydrophobic and can operate anywhere in the cell, not just in membranes. Because it's possible to place his encapsulated dyes in a cell with a greater degree of control, Kopelman likens them to voltmeters. "Nano voltmeters do not perturb [the cellular] environment, and you can control where you put them," he says. The existence of strong electric fields across cellular membranes is accepted as a basic fact of cell biology. Maintaining gradients of charged molecules and ions allows for many cellular functions, from control over cell volume to the electrical discharges of nerve and muscle cells. The fact that cells have internal electric fields, however, is surprising. Kopelman presented his results at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology this month. "There has been no skepticism as to the measurements," says Kopelman. "But we don't have an interpretation."

[capoopy]

Whoa for some reason i thought that said something about cells phones lol

[Oneironaut Zero]

Looks like rubbish, the only Google result for internal electric fields inside cells is that article. My first search after reading the article was ["Raoul Kopelman" 15 million volts] and I got this as one of the first hits, along with another hit from phys.org (saying that the findings were also published in the Biophysical Journal), which I'm hoping you're not attempting to discredit without reason.

[Xei]

15 million volts isn't a measure of electric field strength? Anyway, I just calculated the typical electric field strength across a typical plasma membrane, and found it to be of the order 10,000,000 NC-1, so I suppose these findings aren't that incredulous at all; they just suggest some kind of electrical activity within a cell of the same sort of size as that across membranes. Unfortuantely the original article chose to use misleading metaphors instead of keeping a sense of proportion to the thing.

[Black_Eagle]

It's true, the crux of the plot of The Matrix makes no sense whatsoever in it's published form; you can't use human beings as batteries. That was however an oversimplification (or perhaps creation of a bolder metaphor) of the original plot (for U.S. audiences most likely...), in which the machines were using the giant collective neural network as a medium for computation. Off topic, but I have to ask: Why are movies occasionally altered for American audiences? I can only definitely name Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone as an example. Do they honestly think we're that stupid?

[Xei]

In a word... yes. Most U.S. audiences stood up and cheered at the end of Independence Day for goodness sakes.

[Bonsay]

15 million volts isn't a measure of electric field strength? Anyway, I just calculated the typical electric field strength across a typical plasma membrane, and found it to be of the order 10,000,000 NC-1, so I suppose these findings aren't that incredulous at all. How did you calculate this? And what is your profession, if I may inquire?

[Xei]

I'm a student studying mathematics and the sciences, and I'll be reading mathematics next year hopefully at Cambridge with the intention of going into computational neuroscience research, so this subject is very relevant to what interests me. The calculation is an elementary one, dividing the typical resting potential difference across a cell membrane of 45mV by the width of a plasma membrane of 5nm.

[Bonsay]

Cool. [Sucky post, I know. But I don't have anything smart to say.]

[SnakeCharmer]

The calculation is an elementary one, dividing the typical resting potential difference across a cell membrane of 45mV by the width of a plasma membrane of 5nm. It's easy to get potential difference over the membrane since it's a physical barrier that keeps ions from cell exterior of entering the cell, and vice versa. But ions are free to move inside the cell. Any kind of electrical field would cause them to move down the electrical gradient until they are homogeneously spread and then there would be no more potential difference. That's why any kind of stable electrical field inside the cell is unexpected, it implies big and stable chemical/ion gradients, some kind of physical separation or some previously unknow source of potential difference.