Thanks to Fox who wrote in with a very odd tidbit about the “urine-powered battery” that made waves about two years ago in the international press.

You can see what the device looks like on the UK Science Museum’s website:

Image from IBN Singapore, via Science Museum website

Look at the nice copper foil wrapper. It’s clearly a Singapore product, isn’t it? And a pee-powered device, it makes electricity from human waste? Wow! What a great counterexample to the naysayers who said that Singapore doesn’t make anything new.

Look at the National Geographic’s coverage:

Before you next flush the toilet, consider this: Scientists in Singapore have developed a battery powered by urine.Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology created the credit card-size battery[...]

Ki Bang Lee and his colleagues realized that the substance being tested—urine—could also power [diagnostic tests].

And that in the Daily Telegraph:

Led by Dr Ki Bang Lee, a research team at Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology describes the latest advance [...]

Look, we made it to the pages of international newspapers for something bold and new. So far everything is hunky-dory, let’s just sit back and let the smart foreigners toil away, wait till the technology is sold to a spin-off company, and everyone will be rich!

So what’s wrong with this picture? Read on.

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