Researchers Develop Device To Power Pacemakers From Heartbeat.

In continuing coverage, the Los Angeles Times (11/6, Brown) "Booster Shots" blog reports that on Sunday, researchers from the University of Michigan presented an abstract at the American Heart Association's meeting on the "energy harvesting device" they are developing. Lead researcher M. Amin Karami explained that the device will ultimately, "take the vibrations created by a heartbeat and convert them into enough electrical energy to power a pacemaker." He said researchers used a "piezoelectric harvester" to record "how much power they could produce over 100 heart beats at differing heart rates." They found the energy harvester could generate "more than 10 times the power required to operate a pacemaker, as long as heart rate was between 20 and 600 beats per minute," and it was "about half the size of the batteries used in today's pacemakers." However, Karami said the study team, which "does not yet have a prototype pacemaker using the energy harvester," still needs to "conduct safety testing in animals and humans."

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High school students design device to keep astronauts’ hearts healthy in space

Three high school seniors from Texas have designed an external pacemaker that may help reduce heart atrophy  in astronauts as they orbit the Earth. “After 180 days in space, astronauts’ muscles lose 40% of their capacity for physical work,” writes Camilo Ruiz, a senior at Cinco Ranch High School in Katy, Texas, who designed the “SPacemaker” along with two other Cinco Ranch students.
Ruiz’s team, The Moonwalking Manakins, is one of four that grabbed top honors at the annual Spirit of Innovation Challenge, sponsored by the Conrad Foundation, a non-profit aimed at sparking student interest in science, engineering and entrepreneurship.

for details, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/budding-scientist/2012/04/04/high-school-students-design-device-to-keep-astronauts-hearts-healthy-in-space/