Have you ever thought, "wow, crabs are really the laziest of crustaceans, someone should really find them something to do"? No? Well fear not, because as New Scientist reports, a Japanese scientist did, and he's found a potential use for them -- operating your computer.
According to the blog, Kobe University's Yukio-Pegio Gunji and colleagues discovered when two swarms of crabs meet, they merge and "continue in a direction that is the sum of their velocities", which could be used to form AND, OR, and NOT logic functions -- the basic logic backbone for computers.
After reportedly trying out the design in theory, the team created real computer logic gates using a swarm of 40 soldier crabs, Mashable reports. The team then tricked the crabs into moving by hovering a shadow over them -- leading them to believe a bird was preying on them. Scary times for the crabs, but hurrah for science!
Forbes contributor Dave Thier, however, brings up a good point:
Sure, the crabs might seem harmless now, but what if they were to turn this newfound power for evil? They could create some kind of crab-based digital monster that combines the cold logic of a computer with the ferocious intensity of a snapping crab. They’re already called soldier crabs, for God’s sake.
Are we doomed?
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The Huffington Post | By Laura Hibbard Posted: 04/15/2012 5:27 pm Updated: 04/15/2012 6:17 pm