A new device powered by the heart could finally solve the pacemaker problem.
Some 1.5 million Americans have pacemakers implanted to keep their hearts beating steadily.
The devices are life-saving, but they don't last forever. Currently, most pacemaker batteries have to be replaced every five to 12 years, and doing so means invasive surgery each time.
Researchers at the National Key Laboratory for Science and Technology in Shanghai, China have developed a tiny device that piggybacks off the heart itself to generate energy - meaning a pacemaker battery would never have to be replaced.
Chinese scientists have created a pacemaker that doesn't need a battery because it generates energy when the beating of the heart bends it, meaning it could end pacemaker replacements
A healthy heart can keep time for itself, by way of an internal pacemaker called the sinus node in the upper right chamber.
It fires off an electrical charge some 60 to 100 times a minute, and that electrical energy sets off a series of contractions of heart muscle which in turn pumps blood throughout the body.
But as the heart ages or once it becomes diseased, the sinus node takes a hit, too, and may fail to keep the heart beating in time or at all.
Fortunately, since the late 1950s, we've been able to substitute a small, implantable, battery-powered device to send these electrical signals once the heart can't any more.
Even 60 years later, however, we haven't figured out what to do about the device's power supply, however.
Surgery to place the pacemaker and wires that feed its electrical pulses to the heart is complex, requiring doctors to open the chest cavity.
The pacemaker itself is tucked away in a 'pocket' much closer
