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Scientists Invent Urine-Powered Robots
Lucas123 writes "Researchers have already built robots that can use microorganisms to digest waste material, such as rotten fruit and vegetables, and generate electricity from it. This time, a group of scientists has taken that concept to a strange, new place: urine-powered robots. The scientists from the University of the West of England, Bristol and the University of Bristol constructed a system in robots that functions like the human heart, except it's designed to pump urine into the robot's 'engine room,' converting the waste into electricity and enabling the robot to function completely on its own. The researchers hope the system, which can hold 24.5 ml of urine, could be used to power future generations of robots, or what they're calling EcoBots. 'In the city environment, they could re-charge using urine from urinals in public lavatories,' said Peter Walters, a researcher with the University of the West of England. 'In rural environments, liquid waste effluent could be collected from farms.'"
urine powered robots! piss on that!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Piss poor idea or not?
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Won't that piss off the robots?
If our future overlords are powered off this stuff, they'll effectively harvest us. Why us and not other animals? Because then that would lead to perpetual extinction, and then where would you get urine? They need to keep us and the ecosystems alive to stay alive, and so they will enslave us to improve this world and ecosystems to maximize the efficiency of urine harvesting. Muahahahaha!
Never saw that comming :)
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
Meat>Proteins>Amino Acids>urine. Start back up the ladder and get way more energy. Skynet will figure it out soon enough anyway.
"Brains! B-R-A-I-N-S!"
And people think a hydrocarbon economy is bad.
This sounds like one of those technologies which we have already forgotten tomorrow and will never hear again about.
I didn't realize that compounds found in urine (a waste product, after all) contained enough convertible energy to make the net work output worthwhile. After all, you have to take into consideration the energy expended in gathering and transporting the urine to the robot. The article also mentions using waste water - waste water from what? Is the world just full of all kinds of energy sources that are being discarded, or are we finally realizing that what was once considered 'marginal' capacity for energy harvesting is worth pursuing, since much of the low-hanging fruit (e.g. easily-accessible oil deposits) has already been picked?
(Obligatory comment: I, for one, welcome our new urine-sipping robot overlords. What's that you say? You need several samples for my employment pre-screening?)
our new PissBot overlords.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Everyone knows urine rusts robots.
welcome our new beer-serving overlords!
Another? Don't mind if I do!
Oh wait, it wasn't the Simpsons, it was Aachi & Ssipak.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
are you aware that you're leaking coolant at an alarming rate? ;)
I bet this article just made some technosexual with urolagnia creme in his pants.
They neglect to mention how this conversion will be done, or how efficient it will be. "The microorganisms work inside microbial fuel cells where they metabolize the organics, converting them into carbon dioxide and electricity." The robots carry only 24.5 ml of urine, giving about .025 grams of urea to be metabolized. That's not much energy for a robot overlord.
Piss in my shiny metal ass!
Rule 34.
There's a lot of useful chemistry and energy in ammonia (a significant component of urine), because nitrates, or bound nitrogen, have potential energy. Gunpowder manufacture in the middle ages relied on factory-style processing of animal urine.
How will this go in India? After all, this would mean competition for the consumption of bovine urine.
...our mass transit systems will become self sustaining.
Have gnu, will travel.
"pump urine into the robot's 'engine room,' converting the waste into electricity"
So... Busch Light?
I want a urined powered phone.
The system relies on microorganisms (bacteria) in the pump to convert the proteins (organic matter) in the urine) into a fuel source for the fuel cells. I wonder what will happen when the urine from somebody taking antibiotics enters the "system" and disrupts the bacterial balance being used? Or, for that matter, urine containing any number of disease elements?
Of course, once can engineer the bacteria to not be impacted by such things. But then that changes the question to I wonder what will happen when this super bacteria gets out in the wild?
Golden shower addicted gynoids. Get to it, Japan. You know you want to.
Ha!
Oh wait
A commenter said this stuff is cyclical. Well, I learned a few weeks ago that romans did collect urine from public pots and urinals. Rather than pump it into fuel cells, they just waited till it breaks down to ammonia (our bodies are smart enough to convert ammonia to urea for safe internal storage). Then it was used to maintain clothes or for teeth whitening! ugh. I'm tempted to put ammonia in my mouth but that could be a bit dangerous.
Also why modern urinals were named after a Roman Emperor (Paris, 19th century). He came up with a pee tax, paid when buying urine at the public toilets - a place where endless thousands would come and go each day to piss, fart, shit and socialize.
Maybe we'll go back to something similar too - there's a lot of unused piss and shit and rotten things around, but the supply of it is actually limited.
"We're doomed".
Don't they know it's offensive to take the piss.
This appears to be the original article: http://iopscience.iop.org/0960-1317/15/9/S06?fromSearchPage=true
Here's the abstract:
"The first urine-activated laminated paper batteries have been demonstrated and reported in this paper. A simple and cheap fabrication process for the paper batteries has been developed which is compatible with the existing plastic laminating technologies or plastic molding technologies. In this battery, a magnesium (Mg) layer and copper chloride (CuCl) in the filter paper are used as the anode and the cathode, respectively. A stack consisting of a Mg layer, CuCl-doped filter paper and a copper (Cu) layer sandwiched between two plastic layers is laminated into the paper batteries by passing through the heating roller at 120 C. The paper battery is tested and it can deliver a power greater than 1.5 mW. In addition, these urine-activated laminated paper batteries could be integrated with bioMEMS devices such as home-based health test kits providing a power source for the electronic circuit."
Looks to me like it's nothing more than the old trick of making a battery out of a lemon or other piece of acidic fruit.
Dalek: The hu-man will provide en-er-gy!
Human: What?
Dalek: The hu-man will u-ri-nate!
Human: Wait, what?!
Dalek: U-RI-NATE! U-RI-NATE!
Urine Powered Robotic Overlords!
Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to pee it for yourself.
"Urine powered ___" has been popping up on Slashdot for years now. Once they covered the battery, ( http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=urine+power ), you can kind of keep running these posts on vibrators, flashlights, cell phones, etc. and get the same jokes ad nauseum.
Gently reply
i was just fueling up the robot, this is not of a sexual nature!
...but it definitely sounds like someone is taking the piss.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Brilliant!! THe UK will now be able to use the nations pubs to generate energy. Given the high domestic alcohol consumption the UK will be energy independent in less than a year. It could even become a patriotic duty to drink even more:)
Battletech saw this coming.
or Wee, Robot. If we were living in Rand's dystopian Anthem novel.
Oh c'mon, it was a little funny.
Now, if scientists are truly under the understanding that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a bad thing, why is creating a robot that turns waste products into electricity and *carbon dioxide* considered a green initiative?
They can finally contribute something to society. Maybe each time they use a urinal instead of their coat pocket, it could give them a nickel. Of course then the robot would just proceed to usher the vagrant out of the public restroom when they proceed to lay down for a sleep.
And then some hacker builds self-reproducing rape-robots that feed of peoples' pee.
EcoBot? I thought the name was Bear Grylls.
You jerks beat us to the perfect name: Wii.
Wonder if R. Kelly will be their Director of Creative Innovation?
Finally! The only appropriate comment of its kind. Unfortunately the USAsians don't use this phrase, hence all the laboured punning (and frankly piss-weak) jokes above.
Here I was, sitting at the computer, minding my own business reading /. Then bam! I get this novel idea! You go down to the bar, and instead of just renting it, you tell the bar wench "Hey baby, I'm not just slamming brewskies, I'm making robot fuel!" However you might get tossed on your ass if you include the line: "Wanna handle the discharge unit?" But it makes you wonder what these Wizz-ards will come up with next.
... and design them so that they autonomously can get their fuel happily from the source!
So the robots will need urine to "survive"...
Pair that with artificial intelligence and self-preservation... and these robots will strive to fetch/gather/harvest urine themselves.
Humans produce what is needed for the robots to survive...
This could just as well been human flesh eating robots.
Okay, plenty of piss oriented jokes here already. Now someone needs to come up with one that is shit powered, so we can revive the stupid kid joke about Artoo-Doodoo.
This space unintentionally left blank.
Those already exist. That's called female.
Now we know why Marvin feel so sad.
"I need your jacket, your boots and your motorcycle. And fill this for me. Now."
OK, now we know how the Matrix gets powered.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
yp
If the robots require us to be around for their fuel, perhaps they'll refrain from wiping us out...
I am not a number - I am a free man!
They're taking the Piss ... ! .... and putting it into robots ..... to power them ..... *sigh*
As it turns out, the hole to fuel the robot with urine is located on its ass. This makes it very awkward when you have to bend over the robot and shove your dick inside its ass to give it more energy.
Hello, I am C 3 Pee-Oh, Human Septic relations!
http://vimeo.com/41156263
Now all we need are pissbots who's sole waste product is a human food source.
... and we collect the urine to power the robots.
Wait that's absurd. You couldn't get the cows to use the urinals.
So we hook up these tubes to the bull penises and ... ummm, you go first.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.