Cool stuff this afternoon...

Scientists are working on a robot powered by flies.

The robot's energy source is the sugar in the polysaccharide called chitin that makes up a fly's exoskeleton. EcoBot II digests the flies in an array of eight microbial fuel cells (MFCs), which use bacteria from sewage to break down the sugars, releasing electrons that drive an electric current (see graphic).

In its present form, EcoBot II still has to be manually fed fistfuls of dead bluebottles, but the ultimate aim of the UWE robotics team is to make the droid predatory, using sewage as a bait to catch the flies.

Then there's an entire DKos thread with a ton of Eddie Izzard references. Speaking of which, the Sexie and Glorious DVDs can come out any time now. The latter has been in limbo for over a year.