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A pesticide that’s been linked to neurological damage in children, including reduced IQ, loss of working memory, and attention deficit disorders, has been banned by the Biden administration following a years-long legal battle.

Agency officials issued a final ruling on Wednesday saying chlorpyrifos can no longer be used on the food that makes its way onto American dinner plates. The move overturns a Trump-era decision.

Bags made from rice bran and milk cartons.

A local entrepreneur in the Japanese tourist destination of Nara has developed an alternative to plastic shopping bags, to protect the town’s sacred deer.

Hidetoshi Matsukawa, who works for Nara-ism, a souvenir wholesale agent, told CNN he heard last year that the deer, which roam the city’s park, were dying after ingesting plastic bags.

Continue reading “Japanese man invents ‘edible’ plastic bag alternative to save Nara’s sacred deer” »

A new paper argues that the rise of artificial intelligence in agriculture could be the best—or worst—innovation for our environment.

In order to feed a projected 9 billion people by 2,050 farmers need to grow 50% more food on a limited amount of arable land. As a result, plant scientists are in a race against time to engineer crops with higher yields by improving photosynthesis.

Blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) are known to photosynthesize more efficiently than most crops, so researchers are working to put elements from cyanobacteria into crop plants.

A new study describes a significant step towards achieving that goal. “Absence of Carbonic Anhydrase in Chloroplasts Affects C3 Plant Development but Not Photosynthesis,” published on August 11 2021, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Pet food uses some of the worst meat, and creating a market for it helps keep industrial agriculture afloat. So why should humans eat all the cultured meat?

Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have found a new way to build and package microbatteries that drastically improve energy and power density even at the smallest sizes. They developed a new kind of current collector and cathode that increases the fraction of materials that store energy while simultaneously serving as a protective shell. This reduces the need for non-conductive packaging that normally protects a battery’s sensitive internal chemicals.

It weighs the same as two grains of rice but has the energy density of a much larger, heavier battery.

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It’s hard to avoid garbage when you’re chemically attracted to it. But such is the life of a hermit crab.

It’s no secret that AI is everywhere, yet it’s not always clear when we’re interacting with it, let alone which specific techniques are at play. But one subset is easy to recognize: If the experience is intelligent and involves photos or videos, or is visual in any way, computer vision is likely working behind the scenes.

Computer vision is a subfield of AI, specifically of machine learning. If AI allows machines to “think,” then computer vision is what allows them to “see.” More technically, it enables machines to recognize, make sense of, and respond to visual information like photos, videos, and other visual inputs.

Over the last few years, computer vision has become a major driver of AI. The technique is used widely in industries like manufacturing, ecommerce, agriculture, automotive, and medicine, to name a few. It powers everything from interactive Snapchat lenses to sports broadcasts, AR-powered shopping, medical analysis, and autonomous driving capabilities. And by 2,022 the global market for the subfield is projected to reach $48.6 billion annually, up from just $6.6 billion in 2015.

I would say this is probably aimed at a few things. It’s a work around to the national fight to raise the minimum wage. These will be out of sight out of mind, so no one, besides the workers, will see as they are gradually automated to 100% by around 2027. And, the delivery is gradually fully automated with long distance drones and self driving vehicles. Also, be sure every other chain is working on the same stuff.

The ‘ghost kitchens’ are coming to the UK, US and Canada.