Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers genetically modify piglets to be resistant to an incurable disease plaguing hog farms, Porcine Reproductive Respiratory Syndrome (PRSS). The researchers cut out a specific gene to cure the pigs.

In response to the lionfish invasion’s adverse impact on the ecosystem, RISE will be building a robotic lionfish exterminator.

Biodiversity in the Carribean Waters, right now, is hanging on a thread. For years, its aquatic life has been threatened by pollution, overfishing, and other malpractices. Now, an even greater and uncontrollable threat has risen. It’s goal: having the “all you can eat seafood buffet” of its lifetime.

Continue reading “The Lionfish Terminator: Researchers Built a Robot to Kill Invasive Species” »

China has always been a frontrunner, especially in technological advancements. The country has engaged itself in increasingly audacious and ambitious projects. It is, therefore, no astonishment in calling China, ‘the rising power’.China has established Weather Modification Offices, that enables in manipulating weather using technology. The offices are a network of dedicated units that help in changing the weather throughout China. 55 billion tons of rain is created by China every year, making the country the largest cloud seeder on earth.

China has found the urge to manipulate weather mainly because of the extreme climate it experiences. The region has heavy downpour in rainy season while it suffers from drought in summers. Dust and sand storms are common in springtime. Moreover, given the fact that China has the largest population, it cannot afford to rely on climate. Most importantly, for agriculture. China found the only hope in technology in the manipulating weather for accruing benefits.

Weather modification offices require huge financial resources, human capital and weaponry. It is no wonder that China has spent millions of money on weather modification process. It has spent $150 million on single regional artificial rain program. China has escaped $10.4 billion dollars economic losses by employing weather modification system from 2002 to 2012. Over 35000 people have been employed to carry out this project. About 12000 rocket launchers are being used to fire pellets containing silver iodide into the clouds.

Continue reading “China using Technology over Nature: Weather Modification Office” »

When we go hungry, we have the ability to ignore the urge to eat such that we can carry out the task at hand. It has long been known that the brain is involved in such decisions. But how the brain coordinates the response to nutritional stress so that the body can function normally is not understood very well. Now, researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, have discovered a brain circuit that allows fruit flies to take a major .

In a test lab, Bert2 — a humanoid robot with three separate displays, allowing its eyes and mouth to express various emotions — performed in three different ways. One was silent and made zero mistakes, while a second was mute and programmed to make a single blunder (which it would then correct, quietly). A third was able to speak and accept simple “yes” or “no” responses from the user. In a basic kitchen scenario, the vocal android would apologise for its mistakes — after dropping an egg, for instance — and give a heads-up when it was about to try a new technique.

While the slowest, it was the robot that most people preferred.

But here’s where it gets interesting. At the end of the exchange, the robot would ask for a job. Some participants were reluctant to say no — even if they preferred the silent, more efficient robot — because they thought it would upset the machine. “It felt appropriate to say no, but I felt really bad saying it,” one of the test participants said. “When the face was really sad, I felt even worse. I felt bad because the robot was trying to do its job.”

Continue reading “People will lie to robots to avoid hurting their feelings” »

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In the US during the early 2000s there was an old political term for low skilled jobs, politicians called these jobs “the jobs that no one in America wanted.” Well, we now can start seeing the slogan by politicians as “the jobs that Robots can do for free.”

The focus of automation in farming has shifted from assisting humans to replacing them.

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Continue reading “Robots Inherit the Farm” »

Biology is the world’s greatest manufacturing platform, according to MIT spinout Ginkgo Bioworks.

The synthetic-biology startup is re-engineering yeast to act as tiny organic “factories” that produce chemicals for the flavor, fragrance, and food industries, with aims of making products more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently than traditional methods.

“We see biology as a transformative technology,” says Ginkgo co-founder Reshma Shetty PhD ’08, who co-invented the technology at MIT. “It is the most powerful and sophisticated manufacturing platform on the planet, able to self-assemble incredible structures at a scale that is far out of reach of the most cutting-edge human technology.”

Now, for my friends that luv reading about the truly bizarre or stupid tricks that humans do. 40 knives removed from a policeman today in the Tarn Taran district in India.

In an unusual case, as many as 40 knives were surgically removed from the stomach of a policeman here who claimed that he would feel an “urge” to eat them.

A team of five doctors carried out a five-hour long surgery on Surjeet Singh (40), who is employed with Punjab Police and is posted at Tarn Taran district.

Continue reading “40 Knives Removed From Stomach of a Policeman” »