posted March 27, 2009 03:27 PM         

Ridley Scott's 1982 scifi epic Blade Runner depicts a dystopic society in the year 2019, where all of the world's wildlife is either dead or dying and any animals you see, no matter how convincing, are the result of artificial manufacturing. Could Harrison Ford hunt a replicant creature today? There are certainly plenty of robotic animals getting more and more realistic. But while you might go gaga over the Sega chickens and their Dream Pet series, scientists in the UK are creating creatures meant to do more than entertain. In an ironic intersection of science and science fiction, they're replicating fish that will work to prevent Philip K. Dick's vision of the future from ever becoming a reality.

As part of a research project by the European Commission and coordinated by BMT Group Ltd, Robotic fish are going to help fight water pollution. They're not meant to replace real fish; rather they're meant to keep Earth habitable so real fish can go on living.

The carp-shaped robots will be let loose in the port of Gijon in northern Spain to detect pollution in the water. If successful, the team hopes that such robots will be used in rivers, lakes and seas across the world. Scientist Robert Doyle admits releasing a school of robotic fish to detect pollution "might seem like something straight out of science fiction," but he says there's a practical explanation for choosing this form: