The usual chain of events when a fly enters the house goes like this. The fly is spotted. The swatter comes out, then smacks down. The smushed fly is flicked into the garbage can with an accompanying nose-wrinkle of disgust.

End of story.

But what if your clock could catch the fly and digest it into fuel to power itself? Would that be cool? Efficient? Or just plain disgusting?

The carnivorous clock exists. It was created by U.K.-based designers Jimmy Loizeau and James Auger. And while it hasn't created the same kind of buzz as this week's expected unveiling of a tablet device by Apple Computer, it uses some pretty edgy technology.

The unusual timepiece was one of a series of designs released last year to get the public's mental gears going about green technology and what people want and expect from it. A step up from the clock is a coffee table that catches mice and, like the clock, uses a microbial fuel cell to digest them and produce energy.