DEVICE GETS POWERED BY YOUR EAR

DEVICE GETS POWERED BY YOUR EAR

Our ears contain an elaborate system of chambers that convert mechanical energy into an electrochemical signal, much like a battery. Without those signals, we’d be unable to balance or hear. Now a new wireless microdevice can actually run on that scant energy. The technique could provide an inexhaustible power source for localized therapies and even hearing aids.

“This is uncharted territory in terms of super low power chip design,” said Anantha Chandrakasan, the head of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT.Chandrakasan created the ear-powered device with an interdisciplinary team that included Dr. Konstantina Stankovic, an ear and skull surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital who teaches at Harvard Medical School. Their paper will be published in a forthcoming issue of Nature Biotechnology.