Next time your kid asks for a hamster, put your reservations about stinky cedar bedding and the inevitable hamster funeral aside for a moment to consider what the little creature can do for you. You might be pleased to learn that hamsters have the potential to be more than somewhat creepy, beady-eyed freeloaders that eat their own babies when left to mate and reproduce. They can power your new eco-friendly paper shredder, saving you money and getting exercise at the same time. Now if only someone would create a poodle-powered industrial version, we’d get a lot more done and wouldn’t have to walk our dogs, either.
Okay, so this isn’t a real product, and wouldn’t be all that efficient or animal-friendly if it were – it’s part of an installation at a Milan, Italy art gallery by artist Tom Ballhatchet. But, hopefully it will get some wheels turning in inventors’ minds about (people-powered) manual tech.
