This sloth robot could help (very slowly) save our planet

Look up, because the Atlanta Botanical Garden is getting a cute friend. For the next few months, visitors will find a new sloth lingering in the trees — a new sloth robot, to be exact.

Developed by engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, SlothBot is a three-foot long, solar-powered robot that monitors temperature, weather, carbon dioxide levels, etc. over the area it looms over.

Magnus Egerstedt, one of the robot's engineers, said his creation is designed to mimic and embrace the slowness of a real sloth. The idea, he added, is so that it can conserve energy and survey its environment over long periods of time — months, or even years. Read more...