This Autonomous Robot Can End Mass Spraying of Herbicide on Crops
While some worry of the impending threat robots may have on humanity, some good news concerning artificial intelligence is here, and it may be the undoing of large agrochemical manufacturers. Soon a particular type of robot may become commonplace on farms, scouring crops for weeds and eliminating the need to spray large amounts of toxic herbicide on our food.
The Swiss startup, ecoRobotix, has developed a solar-powered, autonomous robot that combs through fields, detecting where weeds are growing, before directly delivering a micro-dose of herbicide to their roots. The bot can run on its own for 12 hours without emitting pollution and is easily transportable.
Current farming practices rely on universal herbicides, such as Monsanto’s Roundup and its genetically modified crops capable of withstanding Roundup. But these herbicides and GMOs have been proven to be highly toxic, despite their rampant use.
With these new robots, precise applications of herbicides can ensure that fewer toxins are being applied to crops while also saving farmers money. The company believes its technology could reduce the amount of herbicide farmers use by twentyfold.
The robot’s physical design is relatively simple: solar panels are mounted to wheels, with a camera, and arms on its undercarriage that extend to direct a swift, targeted spray of herbicide to individual plants. The company says this precision application leaves no herbicide on the crops themselves and preserves the life of the soil, while minimally impacting it from the lightweight design.
Farmers can control the robot from a smartphone, allowing them to redirect it to other areas where it can then work on its own. The company says their bot will even adapt its speed based on the number of weeds it detects.
There are other companies working on this technology other than ecoRobotix, including one bought by the John Deere tractor company. This type of technology threatens the exorbitant profits made by companies like Monsanto, Bayer, and DowDupont, who reap billions selling herbicides that are indiscriminately sprayed on crops worldwide.
Unsurprisingly, these major agrochemical companies are working to get their hands on this technology. Bayer says it’s not concerned with its business model of being a volume seller of herbicides, though its acquisition of Monsanto could make that model’s vulnerability more of a reality. The global market for herbicides is about $26 billion, of which Bayer and Monsanto earn 34 percent.
In the meantime, prototypes for these autonomous robots are still being fine-tuned, but ecoRobotix says it plans on having them ready for market by early next year. And for now, the robot revolution looks a little less ominous.
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Biotech Company To Send Woman to Space to Birth First E.T. Baby
There’s a long list of activities expecting mothers are typically told to avoid and often they’re pretty mundane; prolonged physical activity, amusement park rides, and getting a tattoo. Not included on this list – because any sane human would consider it to be pretty much implied – is space flight. But now a biotech company called SpaceLife Origin, wants one lucky lady to cast those overly cautious maternal instincts aside and take a trip into the exosphere, so she can give birth to the first (technically) extraterrestrial child.
SpaceLife Origin is founded on the premise that humans are getting close to colonizing other planets and that Earth is becoming an increasingly hostile environment, due to climate change and other unnamed threats. Accordingly, its founders set up a series of missions that involve launching the precursors of life into space over the next few years, and eventually launching a pregnant woman into space to give birth by 2024.
Their first launch, planned for 2020 and titled Mission Ark, is being marketed as mankind’s ultimate insurance policy, offering individuals the ability to store their “Seeds-of-Life” in a satellite hovering in low-earth orbit for the next several decades. Those with the means to afford it can buy themselves piece of mind, knowing their potential progeny will be stored safely off-planet, impervious to any anthropogenic or natural disasters down here amongst us plebeians.
Their second project, set to launch in 2021 and titled Mission Lotus, involves the first attempt to conceive a human being in space – though not by traditional means. Human egg and sperm cells will be launched up to a space station, where they will be used to artificially create an embryo that will mature for a few days, before being returned to Earth, where gestation will continue inside the mother. Nine months later, she will give birth to the first child conceived off planet.
Finally, Mission Cradle hopes to enact the first birth of a human being in space, technically creating the first “extraterrestrial” baby ever. But how would they get a pregnant woman into space without the G-forces, radiation, and other extreme conditions affecting her unborn child? And what about the trip back? All great questions.
SpaceLife says it’s possible though, and that it’s necessary for us to learn the technical aspects of this process if we ever want to colonize distant planets.
“It’s a small step for a baby, but a giant baby-step for mankind,” said Dr. Egbert Edelbroek, SpaceLife Origins Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer.
It’s hard to tell if the company has achieved the necessary funding, partnerships with space agencies, or humans willing to donate their seeds, but if we had to guess, the latter part of that equation is likely the easiest box to check.
SpaceLife’s website includes a promotional video that shows the evolution of mankind’s achievements in a quick montage of stock images, followed by a video of Elon Musk speaking at a SpaceX event. It’s unclear whether the company is actually in talks with Musk, but it’s obvious they’re at least trying to give him a nudge to recognize their lofty plan.
Unsurprisingly, the tentative space nation Asgardia, has expressed its support of SpaceLife’s plan, as it too, hopes to pioneer a number of firsts in space, including a space station that would support an entire nation. But as idealistic and romantic as this all sounds, it always leads one to wonder whether these futurists have the interests of the people in mind, or whether they’re only considering the upper echelon of society.
For more on the potential existence of an elite plan to covertly colonize our solar system, watch this episode of Deep Space:
