MIT inventors create robot swarm for cleaning up Gulf oil

First of all, any headline with the phrase "robot swarm" in it has my complete and undivided attention. This is SWEET. From the same institution that just invented new airplanes for NASA, comes this amazing new idea.

From Fast Company:

Seaswarm, as they call it, basically works like a maxi pad. A patented hydrophobic nanofabric devours as much as 20 times its own weight in oil without collecting water. To capture the oil, the nanofabric's draped over a conveyor belt that's then dispatched on the surface of the ocean like "a rolling carpet," to quote Assaf Biderman, associate director of MIT's Senseable City Lab. The robot's entirely autonomous; it swims along, powered by a pair of solar panels.