On Mon, 06 Dec 1999, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> It turns out that with
> chlorophyll skin cells we can come pretty close to gathering
> enough power to operate. Standing still in full sun in
> someplace like Arizona with both front and back sides receiving
> sunlight (using some reflector system), not thinking very hard
> and I'm pretty sure that you have a net positive energy input.
> You simply have to balance your power gathering intake time
> with your energy output time. It *will* be much more time
> consuming than eating but the discussion had more to do with
> population limits and in that case you want to focus what
> the real efficiency limits are.
Even if you generally cannot absorb enough power to operate, I would still consider this to be a useful body mod. Consider that, if nothing else, you could substantially reduce the amount of food necessary to support a human merely through incidental light exposure. There are numerous efficiencies to be gained from augmenting human energy requirements with effortless power sources.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com