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Robot Eats Flies to Generate Power

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the carnivorous-automotons dept.

ms47 writes "Interesting little story over at MSNBC today about 'robots that can be sent into dangerous or inhospitable areas to carry our remote industrial or military monitoring of, say, temperature or toxic gas concentrations.' The neat part is it's powered by 'catching flies and digesting them in special fuel cells.'"

4 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. Re:They're called, "Flowers" by kfg · · Score: 3, Informative

    The answer is flowers!

    Indeed. That may, in fact, be the very inspiration for this device, as flowers that attract flies and digest them smell like. . .shit and rotting meat.

    Go figure.

    KFG

  2. Gastrobots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Robots that have biotic stomachs are sometimes called 'Gastrobots'. There is a paper from MIT on the subject. Another paper from some guy at USF has this choice quote:

    Few robotics engineers would disagree that robot development has often been inspired by biological examples (Beer et al., 1997)

    This is not a unique insight but it is funny if you misread it as "biological examples, e.g. Beer".

  3. Re:No need to smell like shit... by kiddygrinder · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, i believe mosquitos are attracted to carbon dioxide.

    --
    This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
  4. Re:They're called, "Flowers" by RobertB-DC · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, the symbolism should be obvious, and it was a lot better than the old tradition of giving them animal sex organs. If you think roses don't look very good in a vase after a week...

    Just in case you don't think the poster is serious: he's dead serious.

    Won't somebody think of the children^W butterflies^W raccoons?!

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.