University of the West of England
Latest
Pee-powered socks generate emergency electricity
A team of researchers from University of the West of England in Bristol, UK want you to pee in your socks. You know, in case of an emergency. They've developed a novel power system that leverages your own liquid waste to generate electricity in an emergency. It's essentially the same process as the still suits from Dune, just with electricity instead of water filtration.
Researchers say crab-based computing possible, lobsters throw up claws in disbelief
IBM's Holey Optochip? Yawn. Fujitsu's K supercomputer? Yesterday's news. Forget about boring old conventional computing stuff, the future of computer technology lies in crabs -- lots and lots of crabs. Researchers at Kobe University and the University of the West of England's Unconventional Computing Centre have discovered that properly herded crabs can signal the AND, OR and NOT arguments essential to computers, not to mention those crucial 1s and 0s. Forcing two swarms of crabs into one, for instance, represents the OR gate -- a trick the computational crustaceans pulled off fairly reliably. Not every operation was pincer perfect, however, as the crabs tended to stumble a bit through attempts at signaling the AND function. At least guiding a group of crabs isn't as tough as herding cats -- researchers used a shadow to imitate a predatory bird and direct the hapless creatures accordingly. Sure, it may not be the first biological computer, but it just might be the first fear-based computer.
English scientists set out to build first biological robot using mold
Researchers at the University of the West of England have snagged a grant to fund the building of a whole new type of robot -- a non-silicon, biological plasmobot, built using plasmodium, a vegetative type of slime mold. The mold, which is commonly found living in forests and gardens, is, according to researcher Andy Adamatzky, a "naturally occurring substance with its own built in intelligence," which is capable of carrying out complex tasks, like figuring out the shortest path between two points -- all on its own. The aim for the plasmobot will be for it to sense objects, span them in the shortest way possible, and carry tiny objects along pre-determined routes, controlled by light and electromagnetic fields. The plasmobot should also be capable of complex "number crunching power," enabled by parallel inputs and outputs. Long-term uses could include using the bots within the human body to deliver drugs to specific targets. Though much of this is still purely theoretical (and extremely complicated), we look forward to the day when we're all covered in mold, don't you?
