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.'"

Comments

No need to smell like shit...

[Pinkoir]

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

Flies have been used before

[fiannaFailMan]

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.

human powered

[Doc Ruby]

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.