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Sir Finkus [soylentnews.org] writes:

Scientists hoping to preserve coral reefs have developed an autonomous submarine [ieee.org] 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. [youtube.com] The new poison is allegedly harmless to other sea creatures.

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