A research team led by Dr. Donelan of the School of Kinesiology at Burnaby’s Simon Fraser University has developed a biomechanical energy harvester that generates electricity during human walking with little extra effort. Pretty cool.

Excepted from a paper abstract recently published in the journal Science:

“Unlike conventional human-powered generators that use positive muscle work, this technology assists muscles in performing negative work, analogous to regenerative braking in hybrid cars, where energy normally dissipated during braking drives a generator instead. The energy harvester mounts at the knee and selectively engages power generation at the end of the swing phase, thus assisting deceleration of the joint. Test subjects walking with one device on each leg produced an average of 5 watts of electricity, which is about 10 times that of shoe-mounted devices. The cost of harvesting—the additional metabolic power required to produce 1 watt of electricity—is less than one-eighth of that for conventional human power generation. Producing substantial electricity with little extra effort makes this method well-suited for charging powered prosthetic limbs and other portable medical devices.”

If this intrigues you click here for more information.

=========

The flights to canada had always been expensive. But now the hawaiian airlines have come up with cheap flight deals for canada as well as flights to rome. The airfare is cheap enough to be comparable to that of train travel. Even the spirit airline is going to follow the suit.