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Scientists Discover Way to Send Information into Black Holes Without Using Energy

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New Technology Uses Beating Heart To Generate Enough Electricity To Light 50 LEDs. Here's How

For people with serious heart rhythm problems, a pacemaker can be a lifesaving device. It continuously monitors the heart and delivers electrical pulses when the heartbeat becomes too slow or irregular. However, one major limitation has remained for decades: how to keep a pacemaker powered for an entire lifetime without repeatedly replacing its battery.

Now, researchers led by Han Ouyang have developed a new type of transcatheter pacemaker that could offer a potential solution. Instead of depending entirely on a conventional battery, the device can harvest energy from the natural movement of the beating heart and convert that mechanical motion into electrical energy.

The research introduces what the team describes as a symbiotic transcatheter pacemaker—a small device designed to work closely with the heart while continuously regenerating energy from its movement. In animal experiments, the system demonstrated both energy generation and therapeutic pacing during more than a month of autonomous operation.

The Challenge of Lifelong Pacemakers

Modern pacemakers are remarkably reliable, but their batteries do not last forever. Depending on the device and patient, a pacemaker may eventually require a procedure to replace its power source.

Although replacing a pacemaker battery is a common medical procedure, it still creates additional costs, risks and inconvenience for patients. Repeated procedures can also become increasingly challenging over a person's lifetime.

This is why researchers have been exploring ways to create self-powered or energy-harvesting pacemakers.

The human heart provides an interesting opportunity. It beats continuously, day and night, generating mechanical movement with every heartbeat. If even a small portion of this motion could be converted efficiently into electricity, it could potentially provide a continuous source of energy for an implanted medical device.

The new system is designed around precisely this idea.

Turning Heartbeats Into Electricity

The pacemaker uses a process called electromagnetic induction.

In simple terms, electromagnetic induction occurs when movement between magnetic fields and electrical conductors generates an electric current. The researchers designed a tiny energy regeneration module that uses the mechanical movement associated with the beating heart to produce electrical energy.

Every heartbeat creates movement inside the heart and surrounding tissues. Instead of allowing that motion to go unused, the device captures part of it and converts it into electrical energy.

That electricity can then support the pacemaker's operation.

The important point is that the system does not need an external source of mechanical energy. The heart itself becomes part of the energy-generation process.

This creates a fascinating relationship between the device and the organ it is designed to support: the heart's motion helps power the pacemaker, while the pacemaker helps regulate the heart's rhythm.

A Tiny Device Designed for the Heart

For an implanted medical device, size matters enormously.

A large or rigid energy-harvesting system could interfere with normal heart function or make implantation difficult. The researchers therefore focused on developing a compact system suitable for transcatheter delivery.

Transcatheter procedures allow medical devices to be delivered through blood vessels using a catheter rather than requiring a large open surgical procedure.

The small size of the new pacemaker could therefore make it suitable for interventional implantation.

The researchers also designed the system with biocompatibility and hemocompatibility in mind. Biocompatibility refers to how well a material interacts with living tissues, while hemocompatibility describes how safely it interacts with blood.

These properties are particularly important for devices that remain inside the cardiovascular system for long periods.

Solving the Problem of Energy Loss

Generating energy inside the moving heart is not enough. The system must also capture that energy efficiently.

Mechanical friction and collisions can waste energy. They can also create wear and potentially reduce the long-term reliability of a tiny implanted mechanism.

To address this challenge, the researchers introduced a relatively simple but clever magnetic levitation energy-cache structure.

Instead of relying heavily on mechanical contact between moving components, magnetic forces help maintain movement with minimal physical contact. This reduces friction and mechanical collision, allowing the system to preserve more of the energy generated by heart motion.

Think of it as creating a tiny mechanism that can move while effectively floating under magnetic forces.

This approach is particularly valuable for an implanted device because reducing mechanical contact may help improve both efficiency and durability.

A Near-Zero Starting Threshold

One of the notable features reported by the researchers is the energy regeneration module's near-zero boot threshold.

A boot threshold is essentially the minimum amount of movement or energy required for a system to begin operating.

If an energy harvester needs a strong movement before it starts generating useful energy, it may struggle inside the human body because biological movements can be relatively small and variable.

A near-zero threshold means the device can begin responding to very small mechanical movements.

This is especially important for a pacemaker because the heart is constantly moving, but its movement is not perfectly uniform. The energy-harvesting system needs to function reliably across these natural variations.

Efficient Conversion of Kinetic Energy

The researchers also reported a high kinetic-energy conversion efficiency, meaning a significant portion of the captured mechanical energy can be transformed into useful electrical energy.

The system demonstrated measurable electrical output inside the heart, suggesting that the energy generated from cardiac motion could be practically useful rather than merely theoretical.

For a pacemaker, however, generating electricity is only half the challenge. The generated energy must also be sufficient to support the device's therapeutic function.

The researchers therefore tested whether the system could simultaneously regenerate energy and perform cardiac pacing.

Testing the Technology in Living Animals

To evaluate the technology under realistic biological conditions, the team conducted experiments in a porcine model of brady-arrhythmia.

Brady-arrhythmia involves abnormally slow or irregular heart rhythms. Such conditions provide an appropriate model for testing pacing technology because a pacemaker needs to detect abnormal cardiac activity and deliver electrical stimulation when required.

The experimental system operated autonomously for more than a month.

During this period, the researchers demonstrated both energy regeneration and therapeutic pacing, showing that the device could harvest energy from heart movement while performing its intended cardiac function.

This is an important step because laboratory demonstrations of energy generation do not necessarily prove that a device can operate effectively inside a living body.

Could Pacemakers Eventually Last a Lifetime?

The ultimate goal of this research is ambitious: extending pacemaker service life toward the natural lifespan of the heart itself.

The technology is still at the research stage, and successful animal experiments do not automatically mean that a lifelong self-powered pacemaker is ready for use in humans. Long-term safety, reliability, energy production under different physiological conditions and clinical performance will all need to be studied carefully.

Nevertheless, the concept offers a promising new direction.

The human body contains many forms of energy that are continuously produced—movement, heat, pressure and chemical energy. Technologies that can safely harvest these sources could potentially reduce dependence on conventional batteries in future medical implants.

The new symbiotic pacemaker demonstrates one particularly elegant possibility: using the heart's own motion to help power a device that supports the heart.

If future research confirms long-term safety and reliability in humans, such technology could eventually reduce the need for repeated battery-replacement procedures and make cardiac pacing more autonomous.

In the long run, the most remarkable aspect of this technology may not simply be that it generates electricity. It is that the device is designed to become part of a biological energy cycle—the heart moves, that movement generates electricity, and the electricity helps the pacemaker regulate the heart.

It is a striking example of how engineering can work with biology rather than against it, potentially bringing scientists one step closer to a pacemaker that can truly keep pace with the heart for life.

Reference: Ouyang, H., Jiang, D., Hu, Y. et al. Symbiotic transcatheter pacemaker for lifelong energy regeneration and therapeutic function in porcine disease model. Nat. Biomed. Eng (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-025-01604-4

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