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Harvard's Robotic Bees Generate High-Tech Buzz
coondoggie writes "Harvard researchers recently got a $10 million grant to create a colony of flying robotic bees, or RoboBees, to (among other things) spur innovation in ultra-low-power computing and electronic 'smart' sensors; and refine coordination algorithms to manage multiple, independent machines. The 5-year, National Science Foundation-funded RoboBee project could lead to a better understanding of how to mimic artificially the unique collective behavior and intelligence of a bee colony; foster novel methods for designing and building an electronic surrogate nervous system able to sense and adapt to changing environments; and advance work on the construction of small-scale flying mechanical devices, according to the Harvard RoboBee Web site."
They really should be trying to find something else: more reliable pollination. Yes real bees already do this but mass-produced robo-bees, besides being really cool, don't catch colony-dropping diseases.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Everything you do at MIT is pointless.
You don't actually do anything at Harvard.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Um... um... teach them to spell! Robotic Spelling Bees! Woohoo!
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
My firearm is a flamethrower.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Harvard's Robotic Bees Generate High-tech Buzz
said robotic bees also generate horribly obvious story title pun on /.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
So your firearm is a...fire...arm?
In the near future...
"5 Million dollars worth of robo-bees were destroyed when a robotic "Pooh Bear" attempted to retrieve honey from the hive. The Pooh Bear lodged itself into the only high opening, preventing the colony from being able to return to their re-charging stations. Their charge depleted, they fell to the ground and shattered. A "r.a.b.b.i.t." is reportedly en-route to retrieve the pooh bear."
Great...I can see it now. "Why does this tomato taste like....aluminum and carbon fiber?"
I've been thinking similar things, and although I would be loathe to go back to the days of having to head down to the library and look through cards to find a book that answers a question I can get an answer for from google in seconds, the search trail I leave says a lot about me. Anyone who actually played around with the AOL search data realizes this.
My first thought when thinking about a network of tiny robots, was that someone in some government in this world will definitely turn this into a surveillance and data gathering tool. So while I love technology and the ease it brings to my life, I am also becoming more aware that my privacy is at much greater risk now than it was even as recently as the early/middle 90s. As technology becomes more pervasive, the ability to abuse it becomes more pervasive and I'm worried about that, in a non-Luddite fashion.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Half a bee, philosophically, Must, ipso facto, half not be. But half the bee has got to be Vis a vis, its entity. D'you see? But can a bee be said to be Or not to be an entire bee When half the bee is not a bee Due to some ancient injury?
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Exploding bees? That doesn't seem very useful given the small payload capacity. A more practical military application would be in targeted chemical/biological warfare. A sentry hive placed outside a military outpost could sniff intruders for a chemical friend-or-foe signature and, if it's absent, they could attack. This could even be used as a non-lethal weapon if the robotic insects injected a paralytic agent rather than a toxin.
The military applications are actually extremely interesting!