A hamster wheel has been attached to an iRobot Roomba, a device which cleans rooms automatically using powerful technology to avoid obstacles and which can clean three to four rooms on one charge, according to Sky News.

But the invention will allow the hoover to be powered from the hamster's movements, while the animal will also be able to have its daily exercise.

The hoover will travel in the direction the hamster wants to go.

A video of the prototype has been placed on popular video site YouTube, where it has been watched over 100,000 times.

Hamsters have recently been involved in scientists' quest to harness energy from irregular movements, such as walking, by using nanotechnology, the results of which could mean that mobile phones and iPods could be charged from the movement of their users.

Parrots help man talk again

An American fire-fighter who suffered severe brain injuries in a traffic accident in 1995 has been helped to speak again by his two pet parrots.

Doctors told the man, who was also paralyzed in the accident, that he would not be able to speak any more than a two-year-old and would be bed-ridden for the rest of his life.

But his parrots kept talking to him and doctors were confounded by his rehabilitation.

The man, Brian Wilson from Maryland, said that the birds kept talking and then eventually words just "popped" out of his mouth, and three or four months later he could string a sentence together.

Mr Wilson, who can now speak normally and is also able to walk unassisted, has turned his house into a refuge for unwanted birds and has set up a trust to help pay for their care.

Parrots can live up to 80 years and Consumer Reports has urged bird owners to ensure that their pets are looked after if they outlive their owners by taking out pet insurance.

Dog discovers owner's cancer

A woman was alerted to her breast cancer after her dog started to act out of character.

Maureen Burns thought that her dog, the normally excitable Max, was becoming ill after he started to mope around the house, but it turned out that the dog was trying to warn her of her breast cancer.

The dog began to sniff Ms Burns' breath and nudging her right breast, which she later found out to contain a cancerous tumour.

She said that Max watched with a sad look in his eyes as she checked for lumps in her bedroom mirror and added: "When the nurse told me I had breast cancer my first response was, 'I know, my dog told me!'"

After an operation to remove the inch-long tumour two weeks later, Ms Burns said that Max was "acting like he was a puppy again".

The case gives support to the growing evidence that dogs can sniff out cancer, a theory which has been used to develop a device for detecting cancer based on a dog's olfactory system.