Sauté a teaspoon of rust in a mixture of oil and lye, which breaks down the rust into nano-sized pieces. Retrieve the rust particles with a household magnet. Then immerse the rust-covered magnet into a pot of contaminated water. Pull out the arsenic. The system is up to a hundred times more efficient than existing methods, and requires no electricity or manufacturing infrastructure, so even the poorest of villagers can use it.
That is pretty amazing.
Beginning with no idea of what it looks like, the starfish [robot] makes random motions and measures how it tilts. It then generates about a hundred different hypotheses about what its structure might be, moves itself again, collects more data to determine which models are potentially correct, and behaves accordingly.
This reminds me of a cognitive science class. If you program very simple weights, a program can come to ingenious solutions. Is it, therefore, thinking?
Burying Our CO2
In the Bermuda Triangle, this CO2 ice sometimes is exposed through the movement of the tectonic plates. It then quickly sublimates and just goes into the atmosphere. Sounds like it isn't so brilliant to me.
The Next Plastic
by far the most important of all
