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Google Funds A Starfish-Killing Robot To Save Australia's Great Barrier Reef (abc.net.au)
"It looks like a tiny yellow submarine, but this underwater drone is on a mission to kill," reports ABC. Specifically, to kill the starfish that are destroying coral on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. An anonymous reader quotes ABC:
In a bid to eradicate the pest, Queensland researchers have developed world-first robots to administer a lethal injection to the starfish using new technology... Researcher Matt Dunbabin said the technology was 99.4 per cent accurate in delivering a toxic substance only harmful to the starfish.... Divers have played a big role in helping to combat the starfish, but Professor Dunbabin said the robot would take the efforts to the next level. "Divers currently control certain areas, but there are not enough divers to actually make a difference on the scale of the reef," he said. The drone can also monitor and gather huge amounts of data about coral bleaching, water quality and pollution.
"RangerBot will be designed to stay underwater almost three times longer than a human diver, gather vastly more data, map expansive underwater areas at scales not previously possible, and operate in all conditions and all times of the day or night," according to Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology.
The starfish-killing robots were partially funded by Google (through their Google.org Impact Challenge program to fund and support nonprofit innovators), reports The Drive. One study had found the reef's coral cover declined 50% between 1985 and 2012, "with nearly half of that drop resulting from the coral-destroying starfish species."
"RangerBot will be designed to stay underwater almost three times longer than a human diver, gather vastly more data, map expansive underwater areas at scales not previously possible, and operate in all conditions and all times of the day or night," according to Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology.
The starfish-killing robots were partially funded by Google (through their Google.org Impact Challenge program to fund and support nonprofit innovators), reports The Drive. One study had found the reef's coral cover declined 50% between 1985 and 2012, "with nearly half of that drop resulting from the coral-destroying starfish species."
This particular starfish species is an invasive pest in Australia.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I thought, Google employees were very much against this sort of thing. And Electronic Frontier Foundation disapproves too.
Or is it only bad, when American military works on it?
Yeah, sure "fish aren't humans" — will the robot (particularly, the software) require much rework to begin killing, say, enemy divers?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
pick up scratched lottery tickets? By removing its natural food source, we could get rid of a serious creimer-moth infestation!
Humans are fucking up the environment, that is why the coral reefs are in danger. In the face of what humanity is doing on a global scale, nature can't take care of itself.
I don't know whether killing the starfish truly is necessary, but I suspect corals are ecologically more valuable than the starfish.
so are most Australians
The Australians are crazy. 65 years ago they nuked fucking emus, twice.
This particular starfish species is an invasive pest in Australia.
Whereas the robots are a natural part of the ecosystem?
But I get what you're saying. We know what we're doing - it's not like the old days when we were arrogant about these things. There is no chance of the robots affecting other life in the oceans. There is no chance of them damaging the coral. Nothing can go wrong.
oblig XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1656/
Do something = something might go wrong.
Do nothing = something will go wrong.
wrong
Seriously, Is it too much to ask that slashdotters keep up with the professional literature?
I hope we see more robots like this, to weed out Africanized honeybees from native bees (a small but loud propellor might do the trick), the invasive albizia trees in Kauai, the brown tree snake in Guam, etc. Also for forest management across North America, by strategically clearing out some of the younger trees in order to keep wildfire temperatures low and give the older trees a better chance to survive.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
But instead of starfish and coral it's terrorists and borders.
Would it not make more sense to catch them and make food from them?
Worst case cat food or dog food?
In some countries it is common to eat them: http://www.chinesestreetfood.c...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You must be new <looks at parent UID> errrr, <head asplodes> must not come here very often.
That study puts starfish as cause of 42% of coral losses per year. Seriously?
Reef has been there for hundreds, more likely thousands of years. Same for the starfish. Personal hypothesis: environmental conditions change (for example, sea water acidity), coral weakens as a result, and starfish take advantage of the situation.
Cause of death of the coral? Yes. Cause of the problem in the overall scheme of things? Hell no - external factors. It's those external factors we should be looking at. Not those starfish that do what they do once conditions are favourable.
I'm pretty sure we're all here for comments first, articles second. :D
It was the British that ran atomic tests in Australia.
It's a native starfish. The whole COTS thing has been overblown since Endean started a public frenzy about their presence in 1973. At that time he claimed the reef would be gone in just a few years - denuded to an unrecoverable level. He claimed that instead of new coral regrowing on the existing framework, the dead coral would be replaced by fast spreading algae and from there the base would crumble and disappear.
Since then we have learnt about the symbiotic relationship between coral and algae (Barnes 1975) and the annual mass spawning of corals and their ability to rapidly reinvest in degraded habitat.
There was support for efforts to breed and reintroduce a natural predator in the Giant Triton shellfish which had been reduced in numbers by commercial collection (and possibly/probably natural causes), Some success was indicated but funding is not granted for success these days but by press release, political activity and highway billboards. A little help from the pulpits encouraging good people to support the loudest efforts to preserve God's creations has also encouraged the alarmists.
A lot of money has been invested at times in funding diving teams to directly collect the starfish when they have appeared (cyclically). Direct injection with lime is another method that has been tried. These interventions do have an effect on localised population increases and clearly can delay the expansion of a "plague" zone. It's never been clear if the interventions actually ever genuinely "save" anything as after the starfish eat everything in their local zone they appear to die out anyway.
Economic benefits definitely accrue from direct intervention in tourist areas as it is possible to remove small localised populations from heavily visited areas. This is a reasonable investment in preserving established tourism ventures. (It may enhance the experience for visitors if they are asked to contribute funds to "save the reef".)
This "robot" concept looks to be just an extension of those programs. Ultimately they do "not much".
Until you have seen a full grown emu running at full speed across an open plain, at night, glowing brightly, you have no right to criticise the beauty of a Nation's sporting culture.
Your'e a marine biologist, right?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Well, we let them do it though.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Fortunately we already have drones capable of killing Australians. Starfish-killing drones are new.
Ezekiel 23:20
Two major precipitating factors are nutrient runoff from Indonesian sugarcane farms, and global warming; both of which won't be solved any time soon, without a lot of international cooperation. This method is fairly unilateral,
mosquitoes ... liberals
Blood-sucking whiny pests.
Some states and canada are releasing wasps to kill ash borers. The ash borers are an invasive tree-killing species.
Wikipedia seems to be a little outdated, as they have not spotted the bugs in the PNW, and wasp are being used.
https://dnrtreelink.wordpress....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Lots of bad critters are being fought all over with interesting solutions.
It's about time they did something about those fucking starfish. I never knew there was a problem.
Why the hell am I reading your comment?
Wow, defending mosquitoes just because it gives you an angle to attack Trump supporters.
Sad!
Sometimes I own a cat to kill or scare away the annoying creatures in my house but owning a pet is a lot of work itself and a long term commitment. They need stuff like food, care, etc. If a robot could wander around my house and kill mice, crickets, ants, and any other annoying critter then that would be really cool.
In that same vein, where are the robot girlfriends we were promised?
This is all being done in the name of "save the reef!!!!!!" when nature can fucking take care of itself without needlessly killing shit.
You must be new to this planet. The primary way that nature "takes care of itself" is by needlessly killing a fucktonne of shit.
Next up (I hope), mosquitoes.
See, he comes from a time when the expectation here was that people did more than 1) read the title, 2) read the summary, 3) RTFA. All of which seem to be optional these days.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Please click all the pictures with starfish on them until there are none left and then click OK.
Apple Funds a Robot-Killing Robot to Save Australia's Starfish. Details at 10:00.
The star fish are hard workers that simply out-compete the lazy entitled corals that have benefited from coral privilege for millions of years Killer robots are kind of like ICE agents spreading their gospel of hate and segregation.
In a border-less world all species should be free to swim where they want to. If the corals can't compete, that is their problem. You can't keep the friendly purveyors of diversity from decimating the walled of garden of racism that is the Australian coral reef.
End ICE. End star fish killing robots. End American Imperialism. End the racist barrier to immigration that is the great barrier reef. We should be tearing down walls not reinforcing them. Let's nuke the great corral reef. It is the only way to allow immigration of undocumented guest starfish into the walled off ecosystem. Let's support Mexico. Support star fishies. Kill whitey. Tear down the barrier reef. Love needs no barriers.
Well, we let them do it though.
I didn't. I protested vigorously, but being only six months old, my angered cries were misinterpreted.
It's actually a biological fact, without mosquitos some things wouldn't happen and you haven't predicted what that is. You want to play God but your role is stupid manchild Trump faggot without science chops. Sad!
I worked for many years in the control of vector-borne diseases. There has never been a successful case of mosquito eradication from a region. Never.
In fact pursing the goal of eradication actually makes it harder to limit human exposure harder in the long term. The reason is that to eradicate a mosquito population, you'd have to saturate the entire region with lethal doses of pesticide, which is physically and economically impossible.
Attempting total eradication only creates evolutionary pressure on the population to develop pesticide resistance and greater fecundity.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Asking whether the coral is more "ecologically valuable" than the starfish is premature, because we don't really understand the ecological relationship between the starfish and the reef. It is possible that the reef as we know it might not even be possible without starfish predation.
The crown-of-thorns starfish not some exotic species, it evolved with the corals it preys upon. Had humans never evolved, it would still be killing off sections of coral reef, only there wouldn't be anyone around to be upset at the pictures.
Now there are two possible justifications for humans intervening in the starfish/reef interaction. The first is if prior human actions artificially inflate the predator starfish population. The second is if prior human actions artificially weaken the prey coral population. In both those cases the sensible and indeed only feasible solution is to stop doing whatever it is we've been doing that creates the problem.
You can't eradicate an animal which lays twenty million viable eggs at a time by killing individuals, even on a massive scale. The very next year an area you to all visible appearances swept clean will be covered again. What you have to do is tweak the factors that alter the survival rate of those twenty million eggs.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The British were invited by the Australian Government of the day to conduct the tests. There was about a dozen major tests and about a score of minor tests.
Two were conducted at "Emu Field" which clearly is a site name and not a testament to fauna being present.
Australia very much wanted its own atomic arsenal after the second world war. An Australian, Mark Oliphant, was very much a lead player in original research that lead to the Manhattan Project. It was anticipated that Australia and UK would work together on weapons development. It has been said the acquisition of tactical weapons was their interest with no larger concern for strategic weapons. Australia had/has large uranium reserves, probably the world's largest to use as a bargain chip.
The US intervened and put heavy pressure on the British to close the Australians out of the "atomic club". They largely complied.
Annoyed, Australia started building its own heavy water reactor for ostensibly generating electricity but quite openly admitting it was to produce weapons grade plutonium. The project was suddenly shut down in 1972 after William McMahon, Prime Minister, is supposed to have had discussions in the US.
In the previous years of the Sixties, there was much manoeuvring in the halls of the Defence portfolios. Scherger, the head of the Air Force was driving hard for Australia to have an independent atomic weapons program. The British were caught with a foot either side of the fence. In the end, they promised that if Australia genuinely required atomics for its defence then they would be made available from British stocks. Scherger pushed hard for a suitable delivery system and the Government supported the acquisition of the TSR2 bomber from the British. Scherger wasn't happy and pointed to the back down of the British on Blue Streak and lack of sharing on the Blue Steel projects. Scherger pushed for and got his wish the fully atomic capable F111C from the United States. The US were happy enough to sell the aircraft as fully capable but were evasive about whether they would ever allow them to be armed. The aircraft were subject to the SALT treaties as a result of their capability even though they were ostensibly owned and operated by a non-signatory.
Australia under some pressure signed the Non Proliferation Treaty in 1973.
When Australian scientists developed advanced SILEX technology for the separation of atomic isotopes the US intervened immediately and quoting chapter and verse of the NNPT, basically seized the technology. It was transferred to the US and a fee was supposedly paid for the company and technology. The Australian Government was reported as "eager to comply".
Independent observers maintain that Australia today could develop and weaponise a low yield atomic device from scratch in a period of six months.
How about sugarcane elimination robots, then? They can look like salt shakers and cry 'EX-TER-MI-NATE!' as they do their job.
Salt shakers vs. sugar, who will win?!
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Could we not make goddamn autonomous killing machines? Can that aspect of civlization, at least, take some effort?
Humans are fucking up the environment
Yes, but the pertinent question is whether releasing starfish killing robots is going to be another example of this. Our attempts to fix environmental damage in the past by releasing new organisms to try and kill off some other organism that has got out of control have not exactly been a roaring success. Are we going to kill off the starfish only to find that the reason for their large numbers is that they are eating some other organism that is even more damaging to the reef? Past performance suggests this is certainly possible.
The crown of creation is at it again, fixing up after itself.
How about using bots like these to whack the pythons in the Everglades. Actually all large constrictors and venomous reptiles and arthropods of the world. We don't need 'em, they don't like us ... it's a Darwinian prerogative of ours I feel.
No those starfish are an invasive species. Environmental conditions, like ships bringing in starfish that have not been there before. We alreeqady know the external factors. Now we need to look at solutions. Timetravel and stopping the starfish from arriving is off the table, what's the next solution you are proposing?
Do you understand that your statement is literally anti-evolutionary? Everything on this planet "have not been there before" on long enough time scale, because that's how evolution works.
And as far as scientific language works, these are species native to the region.
Invasive introduced (likely by ship bilges) species that's doing a monster truck load of damage
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
They are a pest to commercial fisheries, who fished out all the starfish predators, and whose members in the past would bisect the starfish and return the remains overboard, not realizing they created another starfish and possibly a population explosion. Crown-of-thorns role in reef ecology is not entirely understood, but one known role is crown-of-thorns prevents fast-growing coral from overpowering the slower growing coral varieties. This species is not invasive, but native to the GBR.
It's actually a biological fact, without mosquitos some things wouldn't happen
Yea, I wouldn't get bitten by fucking mosquitoes for one.
This is what the ecologists are up to nowadays, building robots to kill wildlife?
Trying to maintain balance in the wildlife that humans have fucked up has been what ecologists have been up to since the beginning. The only difference is earlier on they were making things progressively worse not better.
If Global Warming is the largest threat, why go after this invasive species of starfish? Surely they have a natural predator, and it would make more sense to try and limit their threats from human pollution so that they can do their job. Do you mean to tell us, it was one big virtue signaling scam and google moved onto another virtue signaling scam?
Local effects and local pollution are causing the issues, not some massively complex "climate change".
Yes one would assume that if they don't know what they are talking about. Back in reality the starfish are only partially the cause of the great barrier reef death, and the population boom of those starfish are caused by .... climate change.
Ultimately though the root cause of all of this is that the world is full of idiots such as yourself.
Source:
Some ecologists suggest that the starfish has an important and active role in maintaining coral reef biodiversity, driving ecological succession. Before overpopulation became a significant issue, crown-of-thorns prevented fast-growing coral from overpowering the slower growing coral varieties.[53]
At high densities (‘outbreaks’, ‘plagues’), which may be defined as when the starfish are too abundant for the coral food supply, coral cover goes into decline. The starfish must broaden their diet from their preferred species, colony size and shape. The starfish often aggregate during feeding, even at low densities, but during high densities the cleared coral patches become almost continuous or completely continuous (photograph). There are second-order effects of these large areas of predated coral.
The bare coral skeletons are rapidly colonised by filamentous algae (photograph)
Large stands of staghorn coral, Acropora species, may collapse and become rubble reducing the topographical complexity of the reef (photograph)
Sometimes the predated surfaces are further invaded by macroalgae, soft coral and sponges. These tend to take over reef surfaces for long periods as alternatives to hard coral communities, as, once established, they limit recruitment by hard coral larvae.
Aesthetically, in all the above cases, the reef surface is not as attractive as the living coral surface, but it is anything but dead.
There is a third-order effect potentially arising from the invasion by filamentous algae. Animals that depend directly or indirectly on hard corals, e.g. for shelter and food, should lose out, and herbivores and less specialist feeders gain. It would be expected that this would be most conspicuous in the fish fauna and long-terms studies of coral reef fish communities confirm this expectation.[54][55]
Have you heard the story of the old lady who swallowed a fly?
There was a time when citing Wikipedia was contemptible. How can you cite a source that can be edited by anyone at anytime?
No, with Millennials, Wikipedia is spreading questionable knowledge throughout the world.
The Climate Alarmists and their faithful are always shouting about Peer Review, but then turn around and cite Wikipedia which is the exact opposite of peer review.
It's a like a 12 year old has stolen the keys to the Scientific car and is joy riding through the world.
The reef has not been around that long and has been routinely destroyed, quite a few times. The reef as we know it now was a coastal formation, well above sea level, for over twenty thousand years, before it was submerged around ten thousand year ago and started to regrow. It does have predators and will move away from a zone where to detects them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... In fact it is likely the lack of these that is causing the problem, because pretty shell and are more edible than their prey.
Google is simply indulging in an act of marketing, success or failure they don't care, they have been carrying on like a pack of shits and need to pretend to do some good deeds for advertising purposes. Especially invading everyone's privacy through master card, which you would think should be illegal. Financial institutions selling information about you financial transactions, especially say medical fees. Corrupt as fuck, truly disgusting.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Oh, really?
Better tell the CSIRO they are imagining this then.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...
You had to bring Trump into it didn’t you?
Now he is a whiny little blood sucking bitch, just like his supporters.
Absolutely fantastic post, thanks.
I studied physics at ANU 20 years ago and we received a comprehensive course on nuclear weapon technology. Sure, I realise there are a lot of materials science and electronics involved, but I too agree that Australia as a nation could build a decent nuke within 6 months. What that quote/report doesn't elaborate on would be what time-frame Australia would need to get within 90% of what the US and Russia have. My estimate would be 2-3 years, provided a comprehensive testing regime was implemented. This is noteworthy because politically the people of Australia may not have the stomach for it.
By pure coincidence I was watching this tonight.
What is a fascinating corollary of your post, and my own research, is the USA has been a systematic bad-actor all the way through. Why do we tolerate their shit?
A population *crash* isn't tantamount to eradication.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
with starfish and ends with humanity!
It's actually a biological fact, without mosquitos some things wouldn't happen and you haven't predicted what that is.
No animal on earth gets the majority of its food intake from mosquitoes. Whatever wouldn't happen is almost certainly minor.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Can you please link to your peer reviewed study?
Otherwise STFU and let the adults talk.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
You would think the Australians, of all folk, would have realised this.
There was never such a time. I could have had a 3 digit uid if I bothered to get one back then but really who cares? /. has always been the same.
fuck off ivan
Not needlessly. Nature does not express an opinion, needs, desires, politics and so on. It just is. If a bunch of shit dies, nature does not care nor is there an entity with agency that killed that shit.
Do nothing = something might go wrong
Do something = something might go wrong
We have no freaking clue what the evolutionary future of this planet is 'supposed' to be. We are one of earth's creatures btw but everyone likes to pretend like it's us on one side and the animals on the other. If we are the pinnacle of evolution and we wipe ourselves out through some stupid action of our own, then life goes on. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it probably doesn't matter what we do if our intentions are good. There's no reason to just be an asshole to animals, but we don't have the slightest clue what is right for the earth as a whole.
You tolerate the US because your other options are soooo much worse.
If the Chinese ever take over your ass would get blocked online and tossed in jail if you annoyed them enough. Try that vs your freedom to whine without fear of repercussions that the US is a bunch of meanies.
What is the magic date when ecologists suddenly understood everything and can be trusted to fuck around with nature?
Human intervention by neither introduction nor elimination of a species has never gone well.
What is the exact cause of climate change on the starfish? Is it warmer, colder, did water flow change or rise or sink or something else?
Please cite a scientific study rather than cry chicken little about climate change with zero detail, evidence, or anything else. It makes you sound like a retarded child. âoeLittle Jonny what is 2 plus 2?â âoeUhhhh, uhhhhm, errrr, climate change!â âoeGood boy Jonny, climate change answers everything!â
This starfish needs to be eradicated from Australian waters. It is an invasive pest. That means it is not native to Australian waters.
Brought to Australian in the bilge water of ships that did not follow proper procedures to flush their systems before entering bays, reefs, etc.
Yes that means it is an introduced species and it may never be fully eradicated.
The correct reaction for everyone except those with shares in major shipping companies should be "about fucking time."
These starfish are not even a threatened species. Too bad they don't make a good meal. Then we could harvest them and sell them.
This post being left at 0 is a testament to how far this site has fallen.
I was not a starfish so I said nothing...
Fuck off with your black and white political posturing.
But, we already have the tools to eliminate the indonesians. No additional development cost.
There's no need for google to support such a venture. The Australian federal and state governments "responsible" for reef protection are already on course to have it completely killed off, ergo, no need for autonomous roving killbots.
The spike in crown of thorns starfish numbers is largely related to warming waters and increased sediment runoff from farms. Good luck fixing either of those quickly.
The planet is going to be fine. Humans? Huge swathes of species currently in existence? Dunno...