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Scientists Develop Killer Robots That Inject Poison Into Coral Munching Starfish

posted by janrinok on Wednesday September 09 2015, @03:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the needle-match dept.

Sir Finkus writes:

Scientists hoping to preserve coral reefs have developed an autonomous submarine to help control populations of crown-of-thorns sea stars. The sea stars devour coral at alarming rates, and are surprisingly hardy. Missing limbs simply regrow after being removed, so scuba divers have had to resort to injecting the starfish with poison up to 10 times each.

The autonomous robot can stay underwater for up to six hours, and uses a new poison that requires only one injection. The robot identifies the sea stars using a sophisticated image processing algorithm. The new poison is allegedly harmless to other sea creatures.

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  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday September 09 2015, @06:23AM

    by maxwell demon (1608) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 09 2015, @06:23AM (#234112) Journal

    They should have made a robot that gets its energy from the killed starfish.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday September 09 2015, @05:16PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday September 09 2015, @05:16PM (#234309)

    Maybe of the bastards are highly flammable, which is why they evolved to live underwater.