Word: sluggings
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They are every gardener's nightmare: big, slimy slugs that eat holes in lettuce leaves and gouge craters in tomatoes. Now Ian Kelly, a computer scientist at the California Institute of Technology, has developed a robotic slug catcher that not only identifies and eliminates slugs but could eventually power itself with its victims' bodies...
Here's how the Slugbot works: a lawn mower-size machine with a long arm shines red light on the ground to identify a shiny, sluglike object, then analyzes its shape. When it finds a slug, it picks it up and drops it in a hopper. Bacteria inside the robot eat the slimy critters--a process that releases electrons that can be captured and, in theory, keep the bot's batteries perpetually charged...
Kelly says he has perfected the slug-identification-and-retrieval system but estimates that it will be several years before the slugbot is ready for market. Biggest hurdle: getting the robot to convert those captured mollusks into usable energy. While the concept of microbial fuel cells has worked in laboratory tests, applying it to slugs turns out to be a sticky proposition...
...more dune bashing, air-conditioned this time, and after 90 minutes we arrive at base camp in time for some sandboarding and camel riding. We watch sundown, sucking on apple-scented tobacco through hookah pipes, before sitting down to a barbecue of salad, tabbouleh and lamb kebabs. After a slug of thick, grainy coffee and some belly dancing -- this is an all-in tour -- the convoy snakes back through the desert for the hour's journey back to town. The trip costs $92 per person and can be booked through arabianodyssey.co.uk...
...return to the dining room, he barged in, firing a burst that killed his parents and shooting 12 others in the room. Among those fatally injured were the Crown Prince's younger brother, Nirajan, and his sister Shruti. He then turned the revolver on himself, firing a .38-cal. slug up through his temple, the bullet exiting the other side. The shooting spree took less than 30 seconds...