Battery-less device powers a pacemaker using heartbeats

Although cardiac pacemakers have saved countless lives, they do have at least one shortcoming - like other electronic devices, their batteries wear out. When this happens, of course, surgery is required in order to replace the pacemaker. While some researchers are looking into ideas such as drawing power from blood sugar, Swiss scientists from the University of Bern have taken another approach. They've developed a wristwatch-inspired device that can power a pacemaker via the beating of the patie...