What makes a good Sci-Fi story is a solid basis in fact, no really, if you remove the science to far from reality then the story becomes much to implausible and you are in danger of losing the audience. Stories without a basis in fact are in the realm of Fantasy not Science Fiction. I am not a big fan of Sci-Fi but if your interests lie that way then I think the Julian May books outstanding particularly her books set in Pliocene Earth and the Galactic Milieu series.

Then you come to the films, Bladerunner has to be there of course but I was never taken with Star Wars other than the very first film which was truly ground breaking but the sequels should never have been made particularly the one with all the teddy bears. Sequels are often a bad idea, look at the Matrix, great first film but the really should have left it alone after that.

Sometimes you get science catching up with Sci-Fi and rather bizarrely The Matrix is one of those instances. I am not talking virtual reality either but of the possibility of using the human body as a battery. It is being made possible by one of those slightly bizarre findings in the field of nanotechnology. This is the engineering of miniscule devices to perform certain tasks though quite how the nanotech engineers wield their tiny spanners and hammers I have no idea.

The researchers have developed a device, made up of zinc-oxide wires and polymer substrates, which can be inserted in the body next to some tissue that moves involuntary, say the diaphragm or the heart. When the tissue moves the device produces small amounts of power. Not a great deal mind, a test with the implant next to a rat’s heart produced 30picoamps at 3 millivolts so no-one is in danger of self electrocution after a jog around the block and I doubt whether anyone, upon reaching adulthood, will be installed with a standard 3-pin plug.

The researchers are hoping that their device can scale to drive some medical sensors to monitor things like blood pressure or glucose levels for diabetics. 

Another battery, a long time in development, to cause some stir recently is the St Andrews AIR battery. This battery uses air as part of its electricity generating chemical reaction, as the air can be drawn from its surroundings the weight and size of the battery can be reduced making it a superb candidate for laptops or electric cars.