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Tiny Aircraft Feeds Itself With Dead Flies
An anonymous reader writes "The research team from southwest England have built a robot which can move and transmit sensor data over a radio link powered solely by unrefined food including dead flies and apples.
The robot, known as Ecobot II, uses a Microbial Fuel Cell as its only power source. By "digesting" its own fuel, the aircraft could become autonomous and operate without the need for refueling, changing batteries or recharging from the mains. In the Microbial Fuel Cell microbes are used to extract electricity directly from food - in this case flies or apple." Several people noted this previous article on the same project.
This sounds just like Mr. Fusion! Definitely more effective if you pour the beer out of the can and then toss in the container.
1.21 Gigawatts!?
Soylent Green!
Soylent Green is people! PEOPLE!
Laws are for people with no friends.
Now I can field an army of autonomous spybots to stalk celebrities without having to refuel them.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Now if we can only program it to find Sarah Conner.
At what point do they decide that they want human flesh instead of flies/rotten apples?
Or better yet, at what point do they decide that they want to eat our crops instead of flies/rotten apples?
I, for one, welcome our new mechanical locust overlords.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
A. the apples i am attempting to eat at my picnic.
B. the flies at my picnic.
C. violation of airspace?
There's a dead tiny-fly-eating-aircraft in my soup!
it's okay...i'm sure the governor of California has a plan...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Could you imagine flying on it and getting close to no fuel? Suddenly the pilot tells everyone, "we are looking for large patches of flies in the air to maintain the flight course, but we have no fuel left." Then boom, you crash land in an apple farm only to have the plain eat them before you do, even though it is unable to fly?
Damn tricky plains.
> Couldn't a spybot just land on a powerline and get power from induction?
Alas, Hume demonstrated induction isn't reliable.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Does it run Linux?
-Lod
... The scientists also mentioned that they had named two of the robots that showed especially good survival characteristics "Architect" and "Oracle."
Said one of the scientiests, "We believe these two will really push the limits of what is possible with carnivorous robotic machines today and will do great things in the future."
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Watch as money gets worthless as tiny robots take over all niches on planet and eventually build a slave race of flies and fruit trees.
Brings a whole new meaning to "Lord of the Flies"...
Imagine a beowolf cluster of one of these .. oh wait ... all your flies belong to us .. no uhm, but does it run Linux?
the use of knowledge is highly overrated
The robot could even go out and get a job so it can pay for the gas.
Damn lazy robots!!
He's on vacation, but he said he'll be back.
> Robot feces?
You obviously don't work in marketing. It's called iPoop®.
So, I can see how an aircraft might get FLIES stuck to it, but Apples? Man, you're flying WAY too low!
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I, for one, welcome our new skynet overlords.
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I always found it strange that Doc Brown pronounced it the same way that Jay-Z would.
You know where you are? You're in the $PATH, baby. You're gonna get executed!
Yeah, it's just talk, but the talking is being done while consuming large quantities of beer apparently.
Soylent Green???
-Cnik
Venus Flying Trap?
It'll only be useful during the summer in England. A plane that can only fly 3 days a year isn't much of an invention
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So we can power robots with dead flies and apples?
:-)
This reminds me of "The Matrix." Eventually the robots will realize that digesting a human can provide far more power than hundreds of flies!!!
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.