This little robotic eco-warrior has a fuel cell sustained by bacteria living inside of the device, which in turn is scooped up from the water as it glides along the surface of a polluted lake, river or stream.

Four buoyant stabilizers serve as floating feet while two paddles attached to the center of the device propel it like a skimmer across liquid surfaces. As it travels, electrogenic bacteria ‘digest’ pollutants it encounters, generating carbon dioxide and electricity in the process, all of which keeps the Row-bot going. Indeed, it is able to produce more energy than it uses, allowing it to keep functioning effectively indefinitely.

The project is a collaboration between teams of scientists and roboticists at the University of Bristol, Bristol BioEnergy Centre and Bristol Robotics Laboratory, and was presented last month at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in Hamburg, Germany.

“We present a design for an energetically autonomous artificial organism, combining two subsystems; a bioinspired energy source and bio-inspired actuation,” according to their research paper. “The work is the first demonstration of energetically autonomy in a microbial fuel cell (MFC)-powered, swimming robot taking energy from it’s surrounding, aqueous environment. In contrast to previous work using stacked MFC power sources, the Row-bot employs a single microbial fuel cell as an artificial stomach and uses commercially available voltage step-up hardware to produce usable voltages.”

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Developed by the MIT’s Tangible Media Group, this remarkable clothing uses microorganisms to sense perspiration and heat, changing shape to let your body breath on demand. As a bonus, the bacteria employed are fueled by breaking down proteins your body expels while sweating.

Bacillus Subtilis natto bacteria react to atmospheric moisture, expanding and contracting in response to humidity and heat. A specially printed biofilm is overlaid on a spandex suit as shown in the video above.

The special cells sense changes on the body, curling up and thus allowing more airflow when things heat up. MIT is now printing billions of these and testing various applications. “In the era where biology is the new interface, we are imagining a world where actuators and sensors can be grown rather than manufactured,”

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A wonderfully low-tech and low-cost, MIT-designed solution for developing countries, this homemade water filter requires just a few common and inexpensive items working in conjunction with a small piece of tree.

Certain kinds of sapwood are particularly capable of filtering out dangerous E. Coli bacteria, effectively using the same natural process by which trees move water through their own trunks and branches while straining particulates. These DIY xylem filters use the branch’s organic ability to filter out particles down to 20 nanometers in size, combined with a tube and some glue and/or a metal strap to tighten the entire little apparatus.

Other plants may be even more well-suited to the process than those already tested by MIT researchers. “Today’s filtration membranes have nanoscale pores that are not something you can manufacture in a garage very easily. The idea here is that we don’t need to fabricate a membrane, because it’s easily available. You can just take a piece of wood and make a filter out of it.“

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A pair of young inventors in Hong Kong has developed a doorknob-replacing device to change the way we approach hygiene, their prototype successfully eliminating 99.8% of germs on contact using metal and light – a perfect solution for that perpetually tricky question of how best to exit a public restroom.

Sun Ming (Simon) Wong and 18-year-old King Pong (Michael) Li built their creation out of relatively straightforward materials: a cheap embedded ultraviolet LED light coupled with bacteria-killing titanium oxide.Even more ingenious, no external power source is required – the kinetic energy of the door’s motion is converted by a power-generating gearbox into the requisite juice to turn on the handle. Set inside a clear glass container bracketed by metal, the light activates the titanium oxide and turns on the germ-assassinating machine as you use it, after which it turns back off automatically. While similar processes have been used for a long time to disinfect surfaces, this solution is cheap and can be deployed on a massive scale for everyday use.

“Titanium dioxide kills bacteria best when lit by ultraviolet (UV) light, says Simon. UV wavelengths are among those in sunlight. But indoor handles and any used at night would have little natural exposure to UV light. So the teens are lighting their door handle from within. Now, every part of the coated handle will see UV light. To make sure the interior light reaches the coated surface, the teens fashioned their door handle from a long cylinder of clear glass. Each end fits into a bracket. Inside one of the brackets is a strong light-emitting diode (LED). It emits UV light. (Transmitting the light from one end of the handle to the other is similar to the transmission of light through a fiber-optic cable. In this case, though, the glass handle is fat rather than super-thin.)”

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When we think of alternative energy, we usually think of the big players: solar, wind, geothermal, and the like. But there are some alternative energy sources that we rarely consider. Dutch designer Teresa van Dongen explores one of these alternatives in her bioluminescent lamp called Ambio.

Ambio consists of a glass tube half-filled with an “artificial seawater medium,” counterbalanced by two brass weights. The seawater contains a photobacterium species harvested by taking a scraping from the skin of octopi found at a fish market. The tube is capped off with thick wool that allows oxygen to enter the chamber.

When the bacteria are agitated and provided with oxygen, they glow an otherworldly blue color. By gently nudging one of the brass weights, the tube begins to gently sway, waking up the glowing bacteria inside. For a short time, the lamp provides a perfectly electricity-free light source.

The project is compelling and completely beautiful, but there are problems. The bacteria tend to either run out of food or overpopulate the container fairly quickly, putting an end to the display within about two days. The students from TU Delft who helped van Dongen work on the lamp are currently working on prolonging the lifespan of the bacteria so the living lamp can survive longer.

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