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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."
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.
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.
Your'e a marine biologist, right?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
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.