Slashdot Mirror
Carnivorous Clock Eats Bugs
Designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau have created a clock that is powered by "eating" bugs. The clock traps insects on flypaper stretched across a roller system and then drops them into a vat of bacteria. The insects are then "digested" and the ensuing chemical reaction is transformed into power that keeps the rollers moving and the LCD clock working. The two offer another version that is powered by mice and an even cooler machine that picks insect fuel from spiderwebs with the help of a robotic arm and a video camera.
Oh sure, everyone's in favor of bug powered clocks, but as soon as you put a pedestrian catcher on the front of your electric SUV to make city driving more efficient then OHHhhh, suddenly you've gone too far!
I think the practical application is that it gets rid of bugs and it tells the time.
Talk about a nested series of links. I had to go through 3 separate sites- Slashdot, Endgadget, and Hack-a-Day, one linked to the other, until I got to the original New Scientist gallery photos which had many more interesting robot pictures. Oh, and the end link wasn't to page 1 of the photo gallery and the links weren't obvious each time either. For those who don't want to go the long way around, here is the original link.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Instead of linking to a blog that talks about another blog that refers to and links to the original story, why not just link to the original source to save us from 5 click throughs and give the original authors credit as well?
Original story: Domestic robots with a taste for flesh
FEED ME SEYMOUR!
Not only that, if this catches on, it'll just be a matter of time before we start running out of bugs in the US and have to start relying on foriegn sources of bugs.
"It recharges on the fly"