Robots that "eat"

We've all seen the movies, A.I., Terminator, I-Robot, where robots or cyborgs blend into society and wreak havoc. As we build smarter and smarter computers, this fantasy scenario becomes more realistic by the day. However, there has always been a limiting factor: energy source. In "The Matrix" humans blot out the sun by "burning the sky", therefore the robots can't use solar power to keep themselves running. Some robots just run on battery that end up running out after a while. In reality, our computer and robot of today are either tethered to a wall with an electrical cord, or run on a battery that runs out faster a laptop.

Recently some UK researchers have been working on developing a new sort of power source, one that we are all familiar with. They have developed a robot dubbed the Ecobot III that actually "eats" food and digests it and uses that energy converted from that to power itself. The way it works is by putting partially processed sewage into the robots digester. Bacteria within the digester breaks down the food and produces hydrogen electrons that are used in a fuel cells to create an electrical current that is then used to power the robot. Another interesting thing is that the robot can do is autonomously navigate to a nutrient rich feeding tube. Then once its done with the food, it excretes it in a similar way to how we do it (when were sick).

Currently there is a major downside to this technology. While it is working and an amazing technology with incredible potential, it is incredibly inefficient at the time. At the moment it is only able to produce 1% of usable energy for the robot. Eventually they will be able make the machine a bit more efficient and maybe allow for a robot to run exclusively on food that the robot ingests.

There is incredible potential behind this technology. This could be the new alternative energy source that houses run off of, or the new Mr. Fusion that allows us to power our time traveling De-Lorean when we don't have any lighting strikes to provide the 1.21 jigawatts to get it back to 1988. On a more sinister note, this could also allow for hyper intelligent autonomous robots to become more mobile. We have managed to create robots that learn and we have robots with incredibly realistic expressions. At this point we don't have to worry, but if all these technologies are perfected and combined, we may have a problem on our hands.

http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/uk-researchers-develop-autonomous-robot-that-eats-sewage/

http://www.energyharvestingjournal.com/articles/autonomous-robot-that-eats-sewage-00002529.asp?sessionid=1

Overpopulation

Over population is one issue that seems to have the back burner in most peoples mind these days. With the advent of modern medicine, genetically modified foods, and an overall easier way of life, people in developed countries are living longer than ever. Unfortunately, we may be coming up on exceeding the Earth's carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is how much life any environment can sustain with the resources available. Longer lifetimes means more resources used, and sometimes it can be difficult to find resources, or even grow resources in many parts of the world.

Modern medicine has added years to a person life expectancy. More people are living longer, illness free lives thanks to advances in antibiotics and disease prevention.

The graph to the left shows the change in population over the past 209 years. As you can see, a sharp increase in the rate of growth of the population occurs around 1950, which is when vaccines came available for many deadly childhood diseases.

Going to school in Vermont I know people are going to hate me for saying this: genetically modified foods may be a good thing. Thanks to genetically modified foods, crops can be grown where crops have never been able to be grow. Also they are more affordable and today's crops have a higher yield of usable substance to them than food from before genetic modification. Monsanto, the worlds leading supplier of genetically modified crops, helps developing countries with their rice. They are actually donating their seed to countries that have a food shortage. These crops have been engineered to be able to grow in harsher climates and even have been engineered to produce vitamins.

Today's way of life in developing countries is incredibly easy compared to the way of life in developing countries. We are even at the point where we can buy a robot to vacuum our floor, as if that task wasn't easy enough. A lot of people would be happy enough just to say they even have a floor. We could be on the cusp of having machines do all of our work for us.

While it may be good that humans are now living longer than ever, we may be set to exceed the Earth's carrying capacity if we haven't already. We can attempt to modify the carrying capacity as much as we can by creating genetically modified foods and planting them where plants haven't been able to live before, but eventually we will reach a wall. Eventually we wont be able to sustain anymore people. Science and technology have been good to us so far and helped us live much longer than our ancestors. However, our science and technology may soon come to haunt us.

Sources:

"Monsanto to Offer Free Rice Tech." Wired News. Web. 06 Sept. 2010. .

"Population of the Earth since 1900 - Wolfram|Alpha." Web. 06 Sept. 2010. .

"A Science Odyssey: Then Now: Medicine and Health." PBS. Web. 06 Sept. 2010. .