As the more paranoid among us freak out and reach for the hazmat suits, America is fighting the Ebola threat the only way it knows how: hundreds of thousands of dollars of robots, natch.
A ‘germ-zapping’ robot developed in San Antonio is reportedly deployed in Dallas, where doctors are treating the first Ebola patient in the US. ‘Little Moe’, as the germ-eliminating machine of death is lovingly known, is a bit of hospital machinery that can be wheeled into a room, and then uses UV light to sanitise the room, killing pesky germs in the process.
Given the widespread use of robots at other hazardous cleanup sites (notably Fukushima), and the advent of robots that can perform millimetric-precise surgery, I’m actually surprised that robots aren’t being exclusively used to treat Ebola patients. Presumably the bedside manner is still a little wanting. [KENS5 via Mashable]