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IT SOUNDED like something pulled straight from a grisly scene in Terminator: an unstoppable military robot that powered itself by devouring all in its path – including trees, grass and even, according to reports, dead bodies.

But after a string of headlines that labelled the machine a “corpse eater”, the robot’s creators have gone on a public relations offensive to extinguish the rumour that their invention will feed on human or animal flesh. The machine’s inventors say the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot – Eatr for short – does power its “biomass engine” by digesting organic material, but it is not intended to chomp its way through battlefields of fallen soldiers.