Tech | July 15, 2009 | 29 comments

Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies

source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,532492,00.html?test=latestnews

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DeliaTheArtist
" It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century technology — and a 20th-century horror movie.

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.

That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone."
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29 comments // Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies

  • Russell_East
  • mire
    • 0
      mire  

    • I've been saying this for years and I'll say it again....the more faith we put into technology the more it hurts us.One day the robots will rise up to save us from ourselves.

    • 2 years ago
  • chasingame
    • 0
      chasingame  

    • If they create an invincible flesh eating robot (or nanobot) and it gets out of hand they can just introduce an invincible flesh eating robot (or nanobot) eating robot (or nanobot). For centuries people have been fixing mistakes with bigger and better mistakes. I am not saying that there is no potential for something like this to be useful, but it does have some scary implications. On the other hand..... maybe I have been watching too much television lately... :P

    • 2 years ago
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  

    • what if the flesh eating subroutine gets downloaded into the internet and gets picked up by medical nanobots? actually nanobots would already have to use us as a power source. hmmmm.

    • 2 years ago
  • cztheday
    • 0
      cztheday  

    • Yes, thanks Mike, that DOES bring my blood pressure down a few points...I wonder if they could beat the rates I am currently being charged by that extortion rac...I mean lawnmowing service run by that little mercen..I mean delightful teenager at the end of my street...

    • 2 years ago
  • MikeBunnell
    • 0
      MikeBunnell  
    • Image

    • I think we can all breathe a bit easier. Fox has updated the story. Turns out they're developing vegetarian robots that will eat stuff that's "no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips." I don't know about you guys but I'm looking forward to being a crotchety old man, yelling at kids and steam-powered robots to get the hell off of my lawn.

    • 2 years ago
  • lvp
  • cztheday
    • 0
      cztheday  

    • Delia,

      Your enthusiasm always makes me smile (my wife tells me that the phrase she has heard more than any other during our twenty years together is: "Is he ALWAYS that serious?! -- and that is after I thought I was being positively EFFERVESCENT.). But I think you will find that there is a very long tradition in the military of bringing back the bodies of their fallen comrades. As you might imagine, when men are fighting in a foreign land and want more than anything else in the world to just be at home with their loved ones, they form a determination to realize that goal...and a corresponding horror of being left behind -- alive or dead. In fact, many men have died as a result of wounds suffered while trying to extract bodies of their fallen comrades...they honor their dead.

      You can see a bit of the manifestation of that feeling in the efforts that STILL continue to bring home the remains of those missing in action during Vietnam (which I gather ended before you were even born?). I would guess these fellas would last about 10 minutes on a battlefield before our own troops fragged them. Take away the dead body eathing, though, and they may be onto something...

    • 2 years ago
  • DeliaTheArtist
  • TentativeChaos
  • DeliaTheArtist
    • 0
      DeliaTheArtist  

    • The idea is not that these robots will eat just people- it's that they will eat ANYTHING organic to run their systems. INCLUDING dead bodies, if available, which probably would be on a battle field. I think it's a great concept! Biomass FTW!

    • 2 years ago
  • asherp
  • curtispswenson
    • 0
      curtispswenson  

    • Leave it to Fox News to report on a man-eating robot. Subtitle provided on their article: "New way to eliminate liberal threat" (you know they wanted to put that)

    • 2 years ago
  • NuclearLullaby
    • 0
      NuclearLullaby  

    • Robots eating people???!!! They all laughed when I said technology would one day rule the world!!! But now we have to worry about robots eating people!!!??? On the plus side though I do agree about the cemeteries being a bit of a waste of space,but then again...Asian nations already figured out some ways around that problem!

    • 2 years ago
  • darthophage
    • 0
      darthophage  

    • you know - lions, tigers and bears could eat people, I don't see them taking over the world, and as it stands, they are still much more efficient killing machines than the ones we currently have.

    • 2 years ago
  • happy3kmed
  • theultimateend
  • cztheday
  • Jacques_of_Spades
    • 0
      Jacques_of_Spades  

    • The United States military will not deploy a man-eating robot. Just because it -could- eat bodes does not mean that it would. It won't. Fox news sensationalizing again, as always.

    • 2 years ago
  • asherp
  • unimatrix0
  • JohnA
  • DeliaTheArtist
    • 0
      DeliaTheArtist  

    • I really feel like energy from dead bodies is kind of a good idea though. I always think to myself that cemeteries are such a huge waste of space.

    • 2 years ago
  • ii386
    • 0
      ii386  
    • DeliaTheArtist:

      I hate the concept of cemeteries and have made it clear to my family NOT to keep me around like that...with some grave stone and a casket. I'd rather be made into bone meal and put in a garden.

    • 2 years ago
  • asherp
    • 0
      asherp  
    • DeliaTheArtist:

      Uhm. Sorry? Come again?

      Let's just review what's been done here:

      We've created machines to kill people.... that can fuel themselves by eating the people they kill.

      Tell me what I'm missing... this doesn't seem like a good idea at all.

    • 2 years ago
  • royulery
  • T_Rex_Behavior
  • Sam_the_Wizer
  • vistapoint
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