Aquaculture

Inspired by the humble old greenhouse, a futuristic self-contained food ecosystem offers us a glimpse at a how we might one day have "farm to table" on our apartment block rooftops or in space-poor urban areas. Think of it as a tiny house of produce.

If you're releasing a robot into the aquatic environment with no intention of retrieving it, that bot had better be biodegradable. Swiss scientists have gone a step better, with a li'l robot that can be consumed by fish when its job is done.

A new type of storm-resistant fish farm could make aquaculture operations more eco-friendly. The submersible structure is designed to stay in the deep waters of the open ocean, where it should have less environmental impact than shore-adjacent pens.

For centuries, shipworms have vexed mariners by boring into – and consuming – the hulls of wooden ships and boats. Soon, though, we may actually be eating those "worms," as they have successfully been farmed for the first time.

While the farming of salmon does help take pressure off wild stocks, the feed used to raise the fish still isn't entirely sustainably sourced. That may change, however, thanks to nutrient-rich worms that eat readily available seaweed.

There are several methods of oyster farming, one of which involves raising the molluscs in floating bags. Those heavy bags need to be frequently flipped over, so a team of MIT students has designed an "Oystamaran" robot to make the job easier.

So far as feedstocks for the production of biofuels go, kelp is a highly promising one on many fronts, and a new technology promises to boost its credentials even further by maximizing its exposure to both sunlight and nutrients.

It's important for fish farmers to keep track of the number of fish in their pens, but doing so involves going in and actually netting out some of the fish. According to new research, echo-sounding tech could soon serve as an easier alternative.

While ocean-based fish farms do help take pressure off of wild stocks, they have eco-unfriendly drawbacks of their own. A new underwater robot is being designed to address that situation, by autonomously inspecting the fish and their pens.

In recent years, fish farms have increasingly started using underwater ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) for cleaning the nets that enclose their fish pens. A relatively new one, the StealthCleaner, has a unique triangular form factor.

Marine aquaculture pens have to be regularly checked for holes, plus the fish need to be inspected for parasites. And although the job is typically performed by human divers, it turns out that a robotic sea turtle may be a better choice for the task.

​Killing up to 200,000 people annually, schistosomiasis is one of THE most deadly parasitic diseases in the world, second only to malaria. Soon, however, prawn aquaculture could be used to control the snails that spread it – and to provide revenue for people in developing nations.