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Robots to Rid Us of Cockroaches?
unassimilatible writes "It behaves like a cockroach. It smells like a cockroach. It is accepted by other cockroaches. But it is not a cockroach. It is a robot and scientists say its invention is a breakthrough in mankind's struggle to control the animal kingdom. The Sunday Times is reporting on a cool form of robotics, impersonating (inanimalnating?) animals. Leurre is a project on building and controlling mixed societies composed of animals and artificial agents. Within a decade, its inventors believe, it will be leading the unwanted pests out of dark kitchen corners, to where they can be eliminated. Additionally, they say they will soon be using robots to stop sheep jumping off cliffs and to encourage chickens to take exercise. Schematics, tools, and pictures here. Apparently, cockroaches do not wear tinfoil hats, as they are not smart enough to be suspicious of box-shaped circuit boards with an antennae sticking out."
FTA: It is a robot and scientists say its invention is a breakthrough in mankind's struggle to control the animal kingdom.
I would like to see a little drosophila robot lead all of the confounded fruit flies out of my kitchen and into the wild! (although I'm not sure where they'll put the batteries for that one)
If I could control the little robot, I might be tempted to send them right down the drain into my neighbour's place!
I see this as an excellent way to control animals, keep them off of roads and away from harm, but if I have to buy a robot dog to control my real dog, I might just buy a robot dog and leave it at that!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
...who will rid us of the robots?
New market opportunity:
But can it survive a nuclear attack?
no.
score one for mother nature.
-Teiresias
What happens when the robot that vaccums your floor sucks up your cockroach robot? Do they fight to the death?
cleverly disguised as a responsible adult ||
But then I saw the boxy green things, and it occured to me, if the roaches are fscking stupid enough to accept it as one of their own, they deserve to be exterminated by it.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
they say they will soon be using robots to stop sheep jumping off cliffs
Or a... fence.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
This roach bot should be called the CyberDyne Systems T-1. The First Terminator, a robot designed to infiltrate a population and eliminate it.
Human models should be available in a few decades.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
"and to encourage chickens to take exercise"
...Please leave the chickens alone, they have enough of a problem running from the farmer when his wife is out of town.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
...when these robots are so effective, the male roaches will mount them, and get their little roach members snipped off.
While I hate the little buggers as much as anyone else - shouldn't we be careful of technology designed to eliminate a creature...cockroaches do eat things and they are eaten by other things. If they die, it will have harmful effects like hurting the food chain. Then again, they are insects and it is really really hard to make an insect species go extinct...
I do like the fact this can be used to do things like teach chickens to exercise (I hate my KFC being fatty), and sheep to jump off cliffs (do they do this? Shouldn't we get them like psycho-therapy?)
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
...news...
Bottom of the main page: "Last Update 20/10/03 14:37"
My big point, though; the site provides specs, images, everything one might need to actually build one; I wonder how complicated it would be..
Informatus Technologicus
And then, soon, the only cockroaches who survive will be those who can tell the difference between a robot and a real roach.
In other words, the smart ones.
Great idea, guys.
How long until cockroaches adapt and stop following the robot? I bet it won't take very long. A cockroach can yield thousands of offspring every year.
See charts for twitter trends on Trendistic
Raid®: EMP. Robot Ant and Roach killer.
3.5. Develop advanced tinfoil-production methods that reduce costs to 1% of the former foil-making budget, mark up the price of hats 137%
....
and then
8. Lobby Congress to pass legislation granting a legal tinfoil-hat monopoly to prevent piracy of copyrighted hat design
9. Sue cockroaches who buy their tinfoil from "bootleg" foil distributors in Hong Kong or over the internet
10. ???
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
Additionally, they say they will soon be using robots to stop sheep jumping off cliffs [...] I thought sheep were supposed to push back when they are near the edge of a cliff.... oh wait... nevermind
"It behaves like a cockroach. It smells like a cockroach. It is accepted by other cockroaches. But it is not a cockroach."
Oh God! I just stomped on my $1,200 Robo-Roach!! Arrrgggghhh!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
"I for one welcome our transistor festoned friends".
Seriously, another use for Duct tape.
A/K/A/ household hint #444.
If you lay duct tape around the perimeter of a room before retiring, any cockroaches who attempt to cross will become attached to the aDuct tape and are easily disposed of in the morning.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
How do you say "Resistance is futile... You will be assimilated!" in cockroach?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Imagine a Beowulf cluster...
"And then the Cyborgs came."
I just realized how many movies and books could be greatly improved by adding that line to the end narration.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
The best way to get rid of roaches is to get rid of their food and water sources.
This is simply a robotic equivilant of pesticides... you are eliminating a symptom of the problem (Cockroaches) instead of eliminating the actual problem (Food waste, dirty houses).
If you developed little robots to pick up all all those food crumbs and eliminate any spills and puddles, the Cockroaches won't prosper.
I guess in older houses they might still eat wall the wallpaper...
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
These types of robots will create selective pressure against roaches unable to distinguish robots as unfriendly, be it through olfactory, visual or behavioural means. There will be massive positive selection pressure for cockroaches who know their own.
Interestingly while the robots may be scented with roach smell, this puts the manufacturer in the position of a chemical/behavioural arms race with roaches to produce acceptable robots. My money is on the roaches, since they have been around for several hundred million years.
"It is plausible and realistic to imagine that in five or 10 years time, people with a cockroach infestation will be buying robots to get rid of them," Professor Deneubourg said.
... good idea, but we don't want robots that look like cockroaches to get rid of cockroaches. That's *icky.* It won't sell.
My first thought
What we want is bug-killing robots that look like cute little dolls. Now that's marketable.
First they came for the cockroaches
and I did not speak out
because I was not a cockroach.
Then they came for the sheep
and I did not speak out
because I was not a sheep.
Then they came for the chickens
and I did not speak out
because I was not a chicken.
Then they came for the humans
and there were only robots left
and none would speak out for me.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Anthropocentric? What other viewpoint do you suggest, exactly? Should we think like trees? Or maybe we should think like martians! Or like cartoon characters... no wait, they're anthropocentric also. Or maybe we should do what lots of slashdot readers do - think like computers! Unfortunately they have no personality at all, and they have a tendency to build up huge stockpiles of grandma / grand-daughter / yak scat porn, but at least we won't be anthropocentric! And honestly, I think a lot of geeks would be happier living like that.
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
Actually don't bother poking holes in the lid, seal it up. You'll still be able to "catch" plenty of fruit flies. The fruit flies eggs or larvae are in the banana's skin. Thats where they come from in the first place.
Another variation is just a glass with a piece of printer paper in it rolled into a cone/funnel. Apple works too.
I was called out of town to a funeral unexpectedly last summer and left a whole bunch of fruit out (it was the last thing that crossed my mind). When I returned home, I literally had CLOUDS of fruit flies in my apartment. I put a few of those scattered around, and within a few days they were all gone. I had to take the glass outside to release them, but at least they weren't in my house anymore.
Well, you can always count on the minds of the Japanese to already have come up with an anime about bug killing robots....
Ichigeki Sacchuu!! Hoihoi-san (a.k.a. One-Shot Bug Killer!! Interceptor Doll Hoihoi-san)
http://www.tenshi-no-tsubasa.com/
--Chris ^_^
I used to work for a mosquito control company. While the place was pretty low-tech, we were apparently advanced enough that WHO was looking at us for ideas for THEIR program.
heh.
We keep trying to use chemicals to control animals. The potential for genetic manipulation is much more powerful. Animals rapidly evolve resistance to things that kill them outright. But since male mosquitos don't bite (only females) and breeding and releasing male mosquitos doesn't pose a health risk imagine if we bread mosquitos for the following characteristics and then only released the male varieties (sex could be altered by viruses, as currently happens in nature)
1. Mosquitos which prefer nectar to animals. Couple this with poorer versions of the genes which sense CO2 and heat.
2. Breed mosquitos to avoid the human scent. You could do this by exposing mosquitos to a scent with a food source, and killing those which migrated towards it first. Instead of selling mosquito repellants, breed mosquitos which are naturally repeled by people.
3. Perfect viruses which alter the mosquito's sex, making all mosquitos male. It could be distributed in the same way that BT toxin is currently used, and could be made not to jump species barriers. ( I know of worries with calissa virus etc. but those were mammals. These are cold blooded insects )
4. Use devices to interfere with mosquito's mating communication - chemicals, sounds, etc. Like those bug zappers. They can be targeted to mosquitos sufficiently that they wouldn't hurt people.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
One possibility is to target mice or rats. They're prolific, but being mammals are less so than roaches. Unfortunately, they're pretty damn smart and might be able to foil or avoid these robots (finding particular crannies in the wall it can't reach, for example). Also, from a public relations standpoint, a robot that snuffs fur covered rodents would probably spill enough blood to freak out a homeowner. And if the thing botched the job and only maimed the little guys, you'd be stuck with a thousand grossed out homeowners complaining about mice with partially amputated limbs crawling across their new carpet.
Ironically, one of the best choices might be the pests that act more like robots than any other: ants. The tough part of taking them out is tracing them all the way back to the nest, which might be inside a wall or foundation crack. A robot that could track them inside walls, etc. and then do a quick one shot of poison spray to get the queen would be perfect. Ants may be as prolific as roaches, but the queen is the only fertile one in the nest. Get her and it's "game over, man!"
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I have my own observations about roaches: in apartment buildings they usually live/breed in the elevator shaft, or the garbage disposal system. Dark, warm, and generally dirty enough to feed them. In urban houses, they find their way from the sewer system.
Now, three questions:
1) How will the "Terminator Roach" deal with the vertical dimension (the shaft) and with water and human dejects (the sewer) ?
2) How will a little robot, entering into those breeding grounds and coming out with a bunch of his "friends", help me get rid of cockroaches ? It's like, "Hi, I'm back, I look who I brought: This is Joe, this Ramon, this Betsy, this is Dotty and these are their 252 cousins !"
3) Who did such a bad job with pest control for those guys, that made their research goals what they are ? (don't tell me it's a stepping stone to making robot-chickens)
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Better method: Open bottle with some red wine in it. The flies get in but never get out. This was the standard trick to catch escapees in our fly genetics lab... Of course we had to prepare fresh, nearly empty red wine bottles every now and then...
This comment does not exist.
What if they do this to lead geeks out of dark basements and into the light, where they can trap us ?
They could control the nerd/geek kingdom! Oh, no! where is my tinfoil hat when I need it!
wake up and hold your nose
Way too much Phillip K. Dick stuff has been coming true, lately. The future is creepy.
The first rule of Robot Fight Club is, you do not talk about Robot Fight Club.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The English language already has a word like this. It's the transitive verb "mimic" (mimicked, mimicking). Please don't make up any more new words, or we shall be forced to send a large brutish person over to your house to shove a copy of Webster's 2nd down your throat.
Thank You
Usage Enforcement Agency,
Large Brutish Person Division
Why bother leading them out? Just kill the roaches, then eat their bodies for fuel please. There's a good robot.
Is this a big problem? I've never heard of it but there could be a lot of reasons for sheep cliff divers. They get drunk with their hoodlum buddies and start showing off, I'm not sure. But when you think about it there aren't a lot of sheep singing It's A Wonderful Life. You stand around eating grass all day, constantly on the alert for predators, then once a year you get man handled by some smelly guy who shaves all your fur off. That's all fine and dandy, then one day you get to go for a ride in the trailer that ends up at the slaughter house and you're nothing but mutton chops after that, baby.
Yeah, I think I'd opt for the cliff myself. At least you've got a chance that way. You could wash up on the island of lost sheep. But I guess that's another movie.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Kid: "Mom, I made this great invention that will make us millions! Millions I'm telling ya!"
* Cruunnnccchhhh! *
Mom: "Got it! Now, Son, what is your invention?"
Kid: "Doh! Ah forget it."
Table-ized A.I.
1. Buy a bottle of boric acid powder from your local pharmacy (costs about $2 USD).
2. Mix equal parts of the above with sugar, and add a little water to bind them together into a thick paste. Ideally, it should be thick enough to form balls that can be easily cleaned up later if necessary.
3. Place the paste in dark places where you think roaches congregate. Wait 1-2 weeks for all roaches to disappear.
The boric acid is poisonous to both ants and roaches. The beauty of this poison is that the roaches succumb in their hiding places, where other roaches will eat the remains and also subsequently die. It spreads like a virus!
My mom has used this effectively in Western Africa, and it has worked for me in the Deep South.
Boric acid is, from what I've heard, much less toxic to people and pets than the alternative sprays that must be reapplied every few months.
My son and I were thinking along the lines of a robot to fight fire ants. We thought something like a micro-terminator would be cool.
Then we realized that if it was remotely controllable via wireless connection from your computer, with a camera built in, you could virtually fight the fire ants yourself. Instant coolest video game around.
BUT! What if you had a LAN party, and you and friends (or competitors, whatever) had a whole squad or platoon of these guys in the fire ant mound?
If someone does this, they will get filthy rich. (If you do it, I'd like a little credit for the idea, and maybe a tiny %, or maybe a job there. 8^)
The robots can look and work any way you want, so long as on the screen they look and respond like the character you choose (Terminator, Werewolf, Atom Ant, whatever), and they actually kill the ants.
And, of course, if you just wanted the robot to do the work, the computer could run the program for you.
You could use this for any sort of pest - ants, roaches, termites, mice, spiders, snakes, rats, weiner dogs, smug cats, drug dealers, you name it.
I haven't found a new video game I really, really like in well over 10 years, but I would buy Fire Ant Terminator in a heartbeat! And I'd think really hard about springing for the "Vicious Stray Animal Bot", too.
Who said anything about wasting the wine?
Yes, but you catch more flies with honey... :)
~Idarubicin
the super-intelligent roaches will "scorch the sky" in an attempt to keep the robotic cockroaches from using solar energy. The robotic cockroaches will then have to turn the real roaches into "batteries," and create a virtual reality world for them to live in. The roaches will have to await "the One," that roach who is so hyper-intelligent that he can bend the rules of the virtual world with his mind.
While all of this is playing out, I'll just be searching for a very large shoe.
When she was in technical college, one of my old girlfriends used to hang out with a couple of our fellow students who lived in a big, dirty, old, run-down apartment block that was absolutely infested with cockroaches.
Well, one day the microwave stopped working. This was a blow to these poor popcorn-fed students. Since they knew what Ohm's Law was and could identify a capacitor from a resistor, they decided to open the microwave up and fix it themselves.
They were not prepared for what they saw: All the open spaces inside the microwave where choked with cockroaches. Some were dead. Some were alive.
Worst of all, some cockroaches were three times larger than any of the openings they could find.
Although it's possible that they grew this big because of the relative safety and ample supply of dead cockroaches for food, I like to think that the radiation addled their DNA somehow.