Posted on 12/02/2013 6:03:19 PM PST by Utilizer
Full Title is "Holiday Celebration: Robot Turtles, Poop-Snooping DNA Detectives"
“Robot Turtle Will Help Underwater Archeologists Inspect Shipwrecks,” for example, has some obviously worthwhile things to point out about the development of autonomous unmanned underwater vehicles to explore dangerous environments more cheaply and safely than humans can manage.
The saving grace for this report from The Robot Safari in the London Science Museum, however, is the effort the announcement goes to – and trouble the designers obviously did as well – to not only build an autonomous underwater vehicle that swims like a turtle, but justify having done so (paddle-like fins stir up silt and debris to a much lesser degree than propellers or water-jet propulsion systems).
-snip-
Top points in ridiculousness, however, go to the condo- and apartment-complex managers in Braintree, MA, who were inspired to become amateur zoo-geneticists by resident pet owners who not only refused to clean up after their pets, but challenged the apartment managers to prove it was their pets contributing the increasingly hazardous, unpleasant piles of doggie doo on apartment properties.
Rather than put up with a neverending supply of potential EcoBot fuel on marring the landscaping, facilities managers took cheek swabs of all the dogs on the property and sent them to A Knoxville, Tenn. that provided DNA profiles under a program with the dignified name “PooPrints.”
(Excerpt) Read more at slashdot.org ...
First Sharknadoes, now this.
I take it you prefer stag, na does then, laddie. Dinna fash yerself unduly aboot it nae. *grin*
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