A Japanese firm said Monday it would open the world’s first fully automated farm with robots handling almost every step of the process, from watering seedlings to harvesting crops.
Kyoto-based Spread said the indoor grow house will start operating by the middle of 2017 and produce 30,000 heads of lettuce a day.
It hopes to boost that figure to half a million lettuce heads daily within five years.
My parents love their farm life, etc. However, as they are get older, and they need a way to maintain their land, etc. Maybe robots are the perfect solution. Certainly worth looking into.
Japan plans to open the first farm run completely by robots growing vegetables.
How fast is Mach 24? A little over 18,000 miles per hour, which could allow the Antipode Concept jet to fly from NYC to London in the time it takes to eat lunch.
Scalpers offered contact lenses guaranteed to fool any ocular-based biometric ticketing technology.
He was right, of course, which explains all those people arriving at the stadium in all the usual ways. Some came by autonomous cars that dropped them off a mile or more from the stadium, their fitness wearables synced to their car software, both programmed to make their owner walk whenever the day’s calories consumed exceeded the day’s calories burned. Others turned up on the transcontinental Hyperloop, gliding at 760 miles per hour on a cushion of air through a low-pressure pipeline, as if each passenger was an enormous bank slip tucked into a pneumatic tube at a drive-through teller window in 1967. That was the year the first Super Bowl was played, midway through the first season of Star Trek, set in a space-age future that now looks insufficiently imagined.
And so hours before Super Bowl 100 kicked off—we persist in using that phrase, long after the NFL abandoned the actual practice—the pregame scene offered all the Rockwellian tableaux of the timeless tailgate: children running pass patterns on their hoverboards—they still don’t quite hover, dammit—dads printing out the family’s pregame snacks, grandfathers relaxing in lawn chairs with their marijuana pipes.
Over the last 12,000 years or so, human civilization has noticeably reshaped the Earth’s surface. But changes on our own planet will likely pale in comparison when humans settle on other celestial bodies. While many of the changes on Earth over the centuries have been related to food production, by way of agriculture, changes on other worlds will result, not only from the need for on-site production of food, but also for all other consumables, including air.
As vital as synthetic biology will be to the early piloted missions to Mars and voyages of exploration, it will become indispensable to establish a long-term human presence off-Earth, namely colonization. That’s because we’ve evolved over billions of years to thrive specifically in the environments provides by our home planet.
Our physiology is well-suited to Earth’s gravity and its oxygen-rich atmosphere. We also depend on Earth’s magnetic field to shield us from intense space radiation in the form of charged particles. In comparison, Mars currently has no magnetic field to trap particle radiation and an atmosphere that is so thin that any shielding against other types of space radiation is negligible compared with the protection that Earth’s atmosphere affords. At the Martian surface, atmospheric pressure never gets above 7 millibars. That’s like Earth at an altitude of about 27,000 m (89,000 ft), which is almost the edge of space. And it’s not like the moon is a better option for us since it has no atmosphere at all.
The things we need to know for the 2016 robotic experience — robot clusters, manufacturing & logistics, food & healthcare, A3 Mexico Coming Soon and robotics integration.
Bold predictions for Collaboration, Connectivity and Convergence rang in 2015. One industry insider even called them prescient. Looking back a year later, we see the five-year forecast materializing faster than expected.
Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) is more than a buzzword. With drones taking to the skies and autonomous robots navigating our warehouses, local eateries, hotels, hospitals, and stores, and soon our roadways – the differences between industrial, collaborative, and service robots continue to blur. No longer are robots reserved for multinational conglomerates or the rich eccentric with a sweet tooth for high-tech toys. SMEs and your average homeowner can now join the party. Sensors, software, and hardware are getting smarter and cheaper. We’re democratizing robotics for the masses.
It’s taken longer than some had hoped. But we’re approaching the tipping point for many automation technologies. We’re envisioning a world where robots will help the elderly and infirm with everyday tasks, so they can live independently longer. We’re moving closer to Asimov’s robots and to the “mobile, sensate robot” Engelberger anticipated. It’s the paradigm shift foretold by visionaries past and present.
Interesting; no more rotten fruit. Researchers may actually found a new way to preserve perishable foods. Can you imagine the cost savings to consumers, plus being able to supply more people with fresh fruits and vegetables. World Bank and Health Organizations should be interested in this as well.
It does make me wonder how the research on life extension, etc. can learn from the findings of this experiment.
Researchers have managed to “pluck” a single photon – one particle of light – out of a pulse of light.”
Stanford used modified messenger RNA to extend the telomeres so the whole process if it translates effectively into humans — and the evidence is suggesting it will — would be pretty straightforward especially when you consider the degree of extension which is 1000 nucleotides and the fact that the telomerase which lengthens the telomeres is only active in the body for 48 hours which means there is no significant risk of cancer due to the limited time during which proliferation of the cells could take place.
It’s true that Lobsters defy the normal aging process which in humans increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes in humans but not only that they actually become stronger and bigger with age each time they shed their shell whereas humans and other mammals are completely the opposite suffering muscle loss, stiffness and elevated risk of fractures etc. Lobsters just keep growing and can grow to a colossal size over the years there is information on a 95 year old 23 pounder (10.5kg) here http://www.cbsnews.com/news/95-year-old-lobster-featured-at-…estaurant/
Normally a lobster dies because it is eaten by a predator I.e us!, suffers an injury or gets a disease. we know the reason they remain fit and strong and it lies in their use of telomerase to protect their DNA and prevent their telomeres shortening and as a result protecting their cells from dying they also have a vast supply of stem cells which can turn into any into any type body of tissue and this will be one of our main tools for biomedical repairs in the future along with telomere lengthening as explained below because if we can extend our telomeres we will also hold one of the keys to life extension.
Based on current research it is technically possible and highly probable work on telomere lengthening at Stanford university will translate into humans giving us the health benefits currently confined to lobsters and the hydra. The primary concern with the lengthening of telomeres used to lie in the theoretically elevated risk of cancer but this problem does not apply based on the current research which you can see on the Stanford University website here https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2015/01/telomere-exte…cells.html as a researcher in aging I consider this research and some supporting and complementary research which has taken place at Harvard coupled with a additional research relating to a compounds that is related to Rapamycin tends to indicate that we are finally making significant progress in addressing the diseases of aging. Interestingly shortening of telomeres was until recently perceived by many as being a result of aging and not causal but the research at Stanford clearly repudiates this and suggests that Dr Bill Andrews the leading researcher into telomeres was correct all the way along.
In August 2015, astronauts on the International Space Station ate the first vegetables grown in space; earlier this month, they coaxed the first zinnias to bloom.
Though space agricultural technology hasn’t quite reached the level of that seen in The Martian, overcoming the challenges presented by zero-gravity to grow plants was a feat in itself.
Yesterday (Jan. 20), NASA released a video describing the “historic vegetable moment” and explaining the growing process more in-depth. You can watch it here:
We love meat. We love cheese. And for thousands of years we have relied on animals to make them. Impossible Foods has found a better way. We use plants to make the best meats and cheeses you’ll ever eat.
