Short battery history lesson: in 1800, the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile which is recognized as the first chemical battery.

FORBES: Enfucell Makes Batteries Thin, Green And Printable

Applying an electric current and getting a muscle to jump is easy. (Alessandro Volta jolted a frog's legs 218 years ago.) Peckham is harvesting the body's own electrical signals to control muscles that have been cut off from the nervous system, a process called functional electrical stimulation, or FES. Peckham runs a group called the Cleveland FES Center, a collaboration among Case Western Reserve and two Cleveland hospitals.

FORBES: Technology