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Robot Eats Flies to Generate Power
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.'"
In the movie they said we were batteries, but now I know it was just another example of factory farming.
Why not try attracting mosquitos or something. I can't spend 5 minutes outside without 50 or so lunging for my sweet succulent veins. Just get the robot to be warmer than the environment and smell like a sweaty human. Only slightly less offensive than shit I admit but an improvement none-the-less.
-Pinkoir
Juast wondering if this is just some knifd of publicity stunt. I mean can flies really provide sufficient power for a robot to function properly (move around). I mean would'nt it need to be super effecient.Instead why not make a special recharging which periodically goes out into the hazardous env to charge the robots.
Of course the original is a really cool toy if you need an automated fly swatter.
See Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory for more information.
Slugbot, Ecobot... oddly enough I don't see a link to Ecobot II on there.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Where I'm from, on the shores of Lough Neagh, there are a gazzilion flies out in the air every night. They look like columns of smoke, so thick is the sky with them. Well a long time ago, an enterprising farmer laid very fine fishing nets down on the fields by the Lough shore. The flies that died and landed on them were all gathered up and used as fertiliser. His fields that year yeilded 50% more hay than normal. So there you go.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
"Called EcoBot II, the robot is part of a drive to make "release and forget" 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," New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday.
If humans and other mammals do not want to or cannot live/work in these environments, why would insects find a locally dangerous or inhospitable habitat inviting? I don't of many common flies that can withstand high temperatures or toxic gas concentrations and be in a local environment in a large enough population to sustain the energy needs of a robot.
What scientists should be doing is finding ways that allow mammals to live/work in these toxic environments. For example, parasitic worms, the adult intestinal cestode, Hymenolepis diminuta, lives in the intestines of its host; it does not have a digestive system or any means of ingesting food from the host. It acquires its nutrients simply by absorbtion through the cellular membranes. More interestingly, these parasitic helminths have mitochondria that utilizes fumurate as the final electron pair acceptor with concommitant generation of succinate as the end product of its energy metabolism. Translation: This worm's mitochondria operate ANAEROBICALLY whereas the mitochondria in humans and other mammals operate aerobically (oxygen is the final electron pair acceptor with carbon dioxide being the end product of our energy metabolism). Scientists could start genetically modifying mammalian mitochondria to operate in both environments (this already happens naturally in clams and other aquatic muscles). This could allow human heart muscle to survive and function in low oxygen tension environments; hence, no or fewer heart attacks. Pfizer http://www.pfizer.com/ is agressively pursuing cardiac and lipid metabolism research for the treatment of artereosclerosis. Combining Lipitor and a research compound, torceptrapib, will likely prevent plaques and cholesterol from ever clogging up arterial pathways, so my argument is almost impractical, but interesting.
Yes, I'm a chemistry geek! Did you see my Slashdot user ID?
Invent flies that can survive highly toxic and high temperature environments
SURELY these scientists have seen enough movies to realize that making a farking CARNIVOROUS robot is a bad, bad, BAD idea.
How about a robot that eats fish? Now we just need to tweek a few settings, and it might be able to catch even bigger "fish"
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Once they get the taste for flesh, there's no going back. Humans and machines have coexisted for centuries on this planet, so long as there was no direct competition for resources. Now the symbiosis is over, and the machines are in the driver's seat. We're on the menu.
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make install -not war
More interesting is how Asimov tests his three laws in this story. The George robots aren't concerned with physical appearances (hence robo-birds). Therefore they decide humans are really evaluated based on their minds and character. Since they worked out a way to save the US Robotics company and ensure a nice future partnership between humans and robots, they decide they are smarter than normal humans, and thus in fact actually are humans and superior ones at that. Oops.
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Renfield
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Either they were really desperate for a grant application, or there's something else going on here, like a very specialized military application (e.g. can't use a solar power collector because they're putting it somewhere dark or because that would be too visible to enemy soldiers.)
Bill Stewart
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One of the great things about flies is that you can get them to come to you," he said. Hence the downside of the fully autonomous robot: it will have to use sewage or excrement to attract the flies and is bound to smell appalling.
Aren't flies also attracted to watermelon? I dunno, just the first thing that came to my mind...
Mmmm.... watermelon.
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I once held my breath & walked around for a bit. The mosquitos still found me.
Because you're outgassing a suculent (to a mosquito) odor from your skin. It isn't just CO2, but compounds like octenol. Some genera are more strongly attracted to some compounds than others. Aedes and Ochlerotatus mosquitoes are particularly attracted to CO2, or so some of my entomological geek friends say.
Once they get close, mosquitoes are phototropic as well. Since they can see in the ifrared range, you're also like a walking lightbulb.
The way people seem to attract mosquitoes probably depends on two things: their skin sensitivity (sensitive people notice more) and their metabolic rate (which affects how smelly and bright they appear to the mosquito).
Trust me, I know too much about this stuff.
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Finally! The Scottish highlands are made habitable by squads of roving robots that feed off midgies. Just replace the smell of sewage with the smell of humans.
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No, you don't have the right to kill yourself. Doing so would harm any parasites and bacteria living in/on you.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Has it occured to anyone that there are no flies in Antarctica? Or Death Valley... or the centers of volcanoes...
How are they planning to send this robot into toxic environments, when the thing they're using as fuel won't exist in those environments?
*puzzled look*