The story starts with: “A strain of bacteria that releases electrons as a waste product could become the secret ingredient for developing fuel cells for spy drones and other small robots.”
It continues:
“”Researchers at Rice University and the University of Southern California have embarked on a project to harness the power of Shewanella oneidensis, a microorganism that essentially spits lightning. Rather than consume oxygen to turn food into energy, Shewanella consumes metals.
The waste product of its metabolic process comes in the form of excess electrons stripped from the metals but not recombined in subsequent chemical reactions. The bacteria lives in soil, water and other environments and can extract its necessary nutrients from a variety of materials.””
The news demonstrates yet another (mis)use of biohacking. The robots can become self-aware and then with the help of their never ending bacterial power they will colonialize earth and enslave humans. 🙂 We are giving a potentially endless source of power to robots which they could have never self-realized.
I always thought that our best defense against self-aware robots could be simply to take their power plug off. But now what do we do when they don’t even have a power plug?
Click here for the story.