Unmanned 'Terminator' Robots Kill Jellyfish 149
First time accepted submitter starr802 writes "Scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, South Korea, have developed a 'jellyfish terminator' robot set out to detect the marine coelenterate and kill it. Scientists started developing the robots three years ago after South Korea experienced jellyfish attacks along its southwest coast, where they clogged fishing nets and ate fish eggs and plankton, Discovery News reports. The Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm or JEROS has two motors that let it move forward, backwards and rotate at 360 degrees." In related news, the Oskarshamn nuclear plant in southeastern Sweden was shut down recently after moon jellyfish overwhelmed the screens and filters in cooling pipes."
Philip K Dick short story (Score:2, Informative)
Sounds like Philip K Dick's "Second Variety" short story...
Re:Robots to kill moon jellyfish (Score:2, Informative)
Actually Climate change will raise ocean temperatures and make it EASIER for ocean life to thrive.
This Robot == LOL (Score:3, Informative)
Have you watched the video,
the robot consists of a funnel made from rope and suspenders, an digital sensor (on off / perhaps optical to it can differentiate between a tuna and jelly fish) and a propeller (looks like electric outboard motor)
The jelly fish is detected, the electric motor is switched on and the jelly fish is sucked in and hacked by the rotating propeller.
Re:Robots to kill moon jellyfish (Score:4, Informative)
No, because the carbon dioxide is making the ocean more acidic. And I have a link!
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/03/ocean-acidification-carbon-dioxide-emissions-levels [theguardian.com]
Re:Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report, 2015 to 20 (Score:4, Informative)
You REALLY don't want to read the third paragraph of this article then.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/sep/26/jellyfish-theyre-taking-over/?page=2 [nybooks.com]
It'll scare the crap out of you. Seriously.
Here's a sample:
One of the fastest breeders of all is Mnemiopsis. Biologists characterize it as a “self-fertilizing simultaneous hermaphrodite,” which means that it doesn’t need a partner to reproduce, nor does it need to switch from one sex to the other, but can be both sexes at once. It begins laying eggs when just thirteen days old, and is soon laying 10,000 per day.
Jellyfish are voracious feeders. Mnemiopsis is able to eat over ten times its own body weight in food, and to double in size, each day.
Re:This Robot == LOL (Score:5, Informative)
That's just the business end. If you actually read the article, you'd know that the whole buoy-shaped contraption at the top of the page is the robot; it uses a camera to identify jellyfish and plots its own path to efficiently patrol through the swarm. It's an impressive computer vision and AI achievement.
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-37374-9_38 [springer.com]