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"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts

Scooter  
  Biotechnology working to bring you a better solar system - a creepy crawly created to do terraforming work on Jupiter's moon.  

No nanoparticles for Benford; he wants real creepy crawlies, which fit into his picture of a sort of dilapidated moon (of Jupiter) in the middle of being worked on by some ill-paid workers. Given the extreme conditions, no terrestrial life will be able to survive. In the future, it is possible that biotechnology may have the answer in the form of genetically altered Earth life forms.

Bioengeering had put out a spec report on the long crawly things five months back. Scooters had been designed to soak up ammonia-based compounds and digest them into oxy-available ones.
Technovelgy from Against Infinity, by Gregory Benford.
Published by Simon and Schuster in 1983
Additional resources -

The scooters also make an interesting contrast with the Aleph, the mysterious object that is trundling along the surface on a mission of it's own.

This novel has a theme similar to Arthur C. Clarke's Rendevous with Rama, which also explores the indifference of alien intelligence to human life and values.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Against Infinity
  More Ideas and Technology by Gregory Benford
  Tech news articles related to Against Infinity
  Tech news articles related to works by Gregory Benford

Scooter-related news articles:
  - Tumblin' Tumbleweeds Lend Hand In Depleted Uranium Roundup
  - Cleaning Up Chernobyl With Beets
  - GMO Houseplant Cleans Your Air
  - Chinese Fern Helps Remediate Arsenic Soil
  - Can We Grow Crops On Mars?

Articles related to Biology
Lunar Biorepository Proposed For Cryo-Preservation Of Earth Species
Let's Make Slaver Sunflowers! Engineering Plants To Reflect Light
Machete-Wielding Philodendron Isn't Going To Take It Anymore
Tsunami Forecasts Improved By Ionosphere Signals

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