St. Louis University student Nick Aker and an assistant chemistry professor Shelley Minteer developed the biofuel cell in class. Akers said that once the biofuel cell is charged, it could run a cell phone for a week or a laptop all day before needing another drink.

[ Pretty neat... here's a slightly less tongue in cheek version of the story :
http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/FuelCellToday/IndustryInformation/IndustryInformationExternal/NewsDisplayArticle/0,1602,4212,00.html

Still lacks details though. 6200% more efficient than traditional chemical batteries is the only half useful spec I've seen. If that's true, and scalable, then my powerbook should be able to run for about 5 straight days. Yet the article says it could power my laptop "all day" and my cell phone all week. My cell phone already lasts about 4-5 days, and my laptop battery gets between 2 and 3.5 hours per charge depending on how i use it, so, is it 62 times more efficient or 2 times? Or are people's laptops only lasting 1/62 of a full day... i know p4's suck, but...

i hope to see more details... so far the articles i've seen are mostly about how cool it is that this startup got funding. -k]

Vodka and beer to power batteries