Robot to the Rescue

Over at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, a salt-shaker-sized cylinder emitting enough gamma rays to kill 40 people got stuck in a pneumatic tube, causing warning sirens and flashing lights to blare for 21 days. Leaders of the facility called in a team from Sandia National Laboratories, who brought in a robot to try to solve the problem. Still, it took several trips to Home Depot and Lowe's to rig the robot--which was designed for bomb dismantling--to dislodge the radioactive cylinder. The heroic robot's name? Homer Simpson. Just kidding. For some reason they actually called it "M2," for Mighty Mouse.