Efita Newsletter 1069, dated April 24, 2023

Efita Newsletter 1069, dated April 24, 2023
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Châtenay-Malabry (FR - 92290), April 24, 2023


EFITA newsletter / 1069 - European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


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Avant l’informatique / Before computers

24/04/2023
 


Weekly newsletters about ICT in Agriculture in English and French
Both newsletters have around 5000 subscribers.

>>> Last weekly EFITA Newsletters in English (created in 1999) Efita Newsletters

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Oxcart, 1899, by Nicolae Grigorescu (1838-1907)

01 - 24/04/2023
 


ChatGPT Implications for Agriculture, in Modern Farmer, by Shane Thomas, 9 Avr. 2023
…/…
I can use ChatGPT (Note: The author is paying the $20 month subscription fee to access to the GPT-4 model) to help me get baseline tasks done: an outline for a blog post, a template for a standard operating procedure, or to summarize a blog post.

It is also incredibly useful for going deep into areas. Recently, I wrote about Corteva and PacBio. To illustrate the variation between base pairs of a small organism compared to a larger one like corn, I prompted ChatGPT to get me exact gene numbers and size and describe the multiplicative difference between them. Then asked it to go deeper on how this might impact speed up a microbial products time to market. I didn’t copy and paste the answers into the newsletter, but used the points as guidelines for structuring the sentences and overall message. I saved probably 30+ minutes thanks to ChatGPT and got to dive deeper in than I might have been able to on my own.

Lastly, I have used it to generate lists of ideas for titles of articles or for refreshing a tagline. Creativity.
But what excites me beyond personal augmentation is the incredible value it can add to the agriculture industry. Announcements over the last couple weeks have amplified this interest and potential.
…/…
See upstreamaginsights.substack.com


ChatGPT not perfect !

>>> Exclusive: OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic, by BY Billy Perrigo,  January 18, 2023

ChatGPT was hailed as one of 2022’s most impressive technological innovations upon its release last November. The powerful artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot can generate text on almost any topic or theme, from a Shakespearean sonnet reimagined in the style of Megan Thee Stallion, to complex mathematical theorems described in language a 5 year old can understand. Within a week, it had more than a million users.

ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI, is now reportedly in talks with investors to raise funds at a $29 billion valuation, including a potential $10 billion investment by Microsoft. That would make OpenAI, which was founded in San Francisco in 2015 with the aim of building superintelligent machines, one of the world’s most valuable AI companies.

But the success story is not one of Silicon Valley genius alone. In its quest to make ChatGPT less toxic, OpenAI used outsourced Kenyan laborers earning less than $2 per hour, a TIME investigation has found.
.../...
But the need for humans to label data for AI systems remains, at least for now. “They’re impressive, but ChatGPT and other generative models are not magic – they rely on massive supply chains of human labor and scraped data, much of which is unattributed and used without consent,” Andrew Strait, an AI ethicist, recently wrote on Twitter. “These are serious, foundational problems that I do not see OpenAI addressing.”
See time.com


Laundrywoman in Brittany, 1899, by Nicolae Grigorescu

02 - 24/04/2023
 


How did we see the future yesterday??
See the incredible collection developed by Alain Fraval


Archives of our newsletters in French and English
Voir Afia
Voir Efita


 


FutureFarming.com

> FarmWise launches next generation weeding
Thanks to its computer vision and deep learning models, Vulcan can differentiate identify the plants.

> CHCNAV Opens Dealership Opportunities to Precision Ag Professionals
CHC Navigation opens dealership opportunities to precision farming professionals worldwide. Be our dealers in your region and grow your precision farming business with the affordable automated steering retrofit kits for tractors.

> Crop solutions: John Deere announces Furrow Vision for measuring seed depth
John Deere announced Furrow Vision, a performance upgrade for John Deere planters that gives farmers a direct view of the seed as it’s dropped in furrows.

> Spray technology: Test drive with smooth self-propelled Agrifac Condor Vanguard
Sprayer manufacturer Agrifac presented the self-propelled Condor Vanguard which fills the gap between the Condor V and the Endurance.

> Weed control: The future of herbicides: trends for spectrum of use, crop damage and more
Herbicides continue to advance on many fronts.

> Spray technology: AGCO and Bosch BASF in commercialization smart spraying capabilities
AGCO Corporation announced today that together with Bosch BASF Smart Farming it will integrate and commercialize Smart Spraying technology on Fendt Rogator sprayers.

> How to VRA plant per plant with PWM-technology
While more and more new field sprayers are equipped with PWM-technology, farmers can’t optimally benefit from it for their VRA applications yet.

> Weed control: Carbon Robotics bags $ 30m for weed control with autonomous laser bots
Carbon Robotics has raised a $30 million Series C for its precision weed-control system for speciality crops.

> Use of data: How the use of data promoted an average farmer to one of the best
Pitstick Farms has been gathering farm, field and yield data since 1996.

> Funding: CropX completes a Series C financing round with $ 30 million in funding
CropX Technologies, a leader in digital agronomic farm management, announced the completion of a Series C financing round with $ 30 million in funding.

> Autonomous robots: ‘Unlocking the full potential of autonomous agriculture robots’
AAR's including drones and autonomous tractors, have become popular tools in the agricultural industry, says Alastair MacLeod.

> IPM solutions: SmartProtect-project focusing on IPM-solutions
The SmartProtect project is a thematic network focusing on cross-regional knowledge sharing of smart IPM solutions for farmers and advisors.

> 7 AI supported 3-point linkage systems for selective weeding
Weeding tools are upgraded with cameras and AI to smart self-thinking tools with shares, tines, spray nozzles and even lasers.

> Herbicide-tolerant barley: Herbicide-tolerant barley offers growers more options
Australian Grain Technologies (AGT) has released an herbicide-tolerant barley variety which gives growers an additional option for controlling grassweeds in their barley crops.

> Partner feature: How smart antenna can be used for precision agriculture
Agricultural automatic guidance faces challenges like access to positioning information in the wild and stable high precision positioning as always. Harxon Smart Antenna TS112 can solve these problems in one go.

> Field robots: Peter Ferguson, Advanced.Farm: ‘Offering the most advanced robotic picking solution’
US company Advanced.Farm offers robotic harvesting, sorting and packing systems optimised for the berry and tree fruit growing industry. Future Farming talked to co-founder Peter Ferguson about what sets their technology apart.

> Sensor technology: Accuracy sensors requires attention, says researcher
The new book 'Advance in sensor technology for sustainable crop production' brings together the knowledge in the field of sensor technology.

> Field robots: Australian effort to deliver robot-ready strawberries
Australian scientists are developing strawberries that can be easily harvested by robots.

> 4 more ag robots that debuted at World FIRA 2023
During World FIRA from 7 to 9 February this year, some 10 field robots were shown for the first time to an international audience. Most of these took part in the robot demos to show the fruits of their developments. Here we highlight 4 ag robots that debuted at World FIRA, including videos.

> Fertiliser prices are soaring, but help is at hand
The price of fertiliser is enough to give most people grey hair, and there is no sign of any respite on the horizon. However, for all farmers who produce slurry, there is an opportunity to save on the costs of commercial fertiliser.

> Fertilising: 80% reduction in carbon emissions from fertilisers possible
Researchers at Cambridge University have calculated that carbon emissions from fertilisers could be reduced by as much as 80% by 2050.

> Crop monitoring: Crop monitoring market to grow to USD 4.4 billion by 2025
According to MarketsandMarkets the global crop monitoring market is expected to grow from USD 2.2 billion in 2020 to USD 4.4 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 15.2%.

> Robotics & Autonomy / Video: Robots, autonomy and electrification at World AG Expo
From February 14 to 16, 2023, Future Farming visited the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California. When it comes to field robots, autonomous tractors and electric tractors, all the major suppliers of the North American market were present, and we went to meet them.

See futurefarming.com

Peasant Woman from Muscle, by Nicolae Grigorescu

03 - 24/04/2023
 


Fairground in Sinaia by Nicolae Grigorescu

04 - 24/04/2023
 

Global Tech Initiative

> What the Future of Automation in Agriculture Might Look Like
Grower support is absolutely critical to the success of new technological products. That was the message from a recent VISION Conference panel.

> CNH Industrial to Acquire Hemisphere GNSS
Acquisition brings core satellite navigation technology in-house to strengthen CNH Industrial's precision solutions.

> Four Ways Remote Monitoring Increases Efficiency in Modern Ag Operations
From taking the guesswork out of irrigation, to accelerating response time to adverse weather, remote monitoring gives real-time visibility of entire operations.

> Agmatix Partners with NASA Harvest to Support the Uptake of Sustainable Agricultural Practices
A combination of ground sampling and remote sensing data will be used to support farmers in their transition toward sustainable agriculture.

> SWARM Engineering Launches AgriFood Virtual Advisor, Powered by OpenAI and Microsoft Azure
AI-powered digital assistant based is designed to help businesses in agri-food solve operational challenges and save millions of dollars.

> Learn About the Women in Ag Tech Initiative at Tech Hub LIVE 2023
The group aims to provide women in agriculture technology with a platform to connect, engage, and build a community.

> Recognize the Innovators Transforming Agriculture: Submit Nomination by May 1
Nominate an outstanding individual for one of four CropLife Ag Tech Awards Of Excellence by May 1, 2023.

> Q1 2023 AgTech Venture Capital Investment and Exit Round Up
Despite the reduction in investment dollars, the number of deals continued to grow, says agtech investment expert Kyle Welborn.

> Urban Crop Solutions Ranked Fourth in Fast Company’s List of Most Innovative Companies
The only indoor farming company to be named in this category, UCS stood out for the launch of its PharmSpee platform.

> Wingtra Lands $22M Funding Round for Manufacturing Commercial Drones
Wingtra to accelerate growth with new funding round, management team, and product innovation.

> Technology for Delivering Real-Time Soil Data Essential for Food Quality
Combining technology with soil health and agriculture could hold the key to increased demand and limited supply.

> Carbon Robotics Raises $30 Million in Funding to Scale AI-Powered LaserWeeder Platform
The funding will be used to expand sales regions in North America, optimize and scale manufacturing, and launch into international markets.

> Agrotools Brings Its Digital Solutions to the North American Market
The Brazilian agritech leader onboards new North American Managing Director as it plans for 2023 expansion.

> Remote Sensing Helps Explain How Farmers Can Track and Tackle Droughts in Iowa
Driven by the desire to help preserve the planet, EOS Data Analytics takes a look at the ways farmers mitigate the effects of prolonged droughts on corn crops.

> SVG Ventures | THRIVE Announces 5 Global Startups Selected for Accelerator Program
The five companies were selected from an applicant pool of over 500 startups from across 75 countries.

> Virtual Cropping Creating Big Picture for Growers
AquaSpy's Kathleen Glass, a presenter at this week's VISION Conference, shares insights on virtual cropping and how it will affect agriculture.

> Quantum Computing Forwarding Logistics, Market, and Field Machinery Solutions
VISION Conference speaker Santiago Nunez-Corrales shares where quantum computing is poised to take us in the next 10 years.

> Ag Tech Talk Podcast: Bringing AI and Humans Together to Solve Edge Cases
In this AgriBusiness Global podcast, Michael Kohen, Founder and CEO of Spark AI, shares insights on artificial intelligence and the future of farming.

> Rising Food Prices Could Create Opportunities in Ag Tech
Learn how AgriFORCE is developing agtech innovations and building out a robust IP portfolio to creatively solve industry problems.

> Siemens and 80 Acres Collaborate to Scale Vertical Farming
Siemens technology is aiding 80 Acres Farms and its technology subsidiary, Infinite Acres, in expansion to meet global food supply demands.

See globalagtechinitiative.com





agfundernews.com

> Carbon Robotics bags $30m to fight the war on weeds with autonomous laser bots, AFN, by Jennifer Marston

Carbon Robotics has raised a $30 million Series C for its precision weed-control system for speciality crops.
New investor Sozo Ventures led the round with participation from existing investors Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, Ignition Partners, Liquid2 and Voyager Capital.
Funding will go towards expanding US-based Carbon Robotics’ system in North America, new software and hardware products and launching into international markets.
The Series C brings Carbon Robotics’ total funding to $67 million.
…/…

> Data snapshot: Almost half of all AgriFoodTech VC investment in the US goes to California startups, AFN, by Jennifer Marston

Startups in California — and more specifically Silicon Valley — scooped up almost half of all VC funding for US companies in 2022, according to AgFunder’s Global AgriFoodTech Investment Report 2023.
US startups raised $12.4 billion in funding last year; California startups took $5.3 billion of that capital, a figure almost twice as big as the second-largest global market, India.

24/04/2023
 

> Fork & Good targets cost parity for cultivated pork: ‘It’s a totally useless exercise to make products nobody can afford’, AFN, by Elaine Watson

In theory, growing meat from animal cells instead of slaughtering billions of sentient creatures and plundering the oceans sounds like a no-brainer: The promise of ‘real’ meat, without the ethical and environmental baggage.

In practice, many of the startups attempting to deliver on this promise are using approaches with highly questionable economics at food scale, claims Fork & Good co-founder and chief scientific officer Dr. Gabor Forgacs.

“It’s a totally useless exercise to make these products at a price that nobody can afford. We have to separate the hype from reality in this industry. I’ve lived through this hype before when I was working in bioprinting [at a company called Organovo] in 2007. I remember people were saying, ‘Oh, you guys are going to make hearts and livers and kidneys overnight’ and the hype was so unhealthy.

“And that’s one reason why Fork & Good [which Forgacs cofounded with Niya Gupta in 2018] has been in stealth mode until we got to the point that we were convinced we could make products at a price that people can afford. From the very beginning, we were thinking about techno-economics
2022 Asia-Pacific AgriFoodTech Investment Report, AgFunder
…/…

> Tevel named winner at World Ag Expo for advancing autonomous harvesting using flying robots​, ​AFN, by Lucy Ngige

“Right now there’s just not enough pickers to harvest fruit on time and farmers are just bleeding money, losing revenues and profits due to this global labor shortage,” says Danielle Efargan from Tevel, an Israeli developer of autonomous flying fruit-picking robots currently serving the European and US markets.

Tevel recently made headlines after being recognized as one of the winners in the ‘Top-10 New Product‘ competition at the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California.

Tevel’s founder and CEO Yaniv Maor, who comes from a background in research and development, industrial defense and consumer markets spanning over 20 years, had the idea for the company after watching a documentary where young people were tasked to manually pick fruit. In just half a day, everyone quit because the task was too strenuous. Apart from the strain, such labor is often priced very low in the market and is scarce. Manual harvesting is also one of the major causes of food waste due to unnecessary bruising and is very time inefficient.
.../...

> Digitizing the supply chain drove investment increase in African agrifoodtech in 2022, ​AFN, by Lucy Ngige

Africa was the only region globally where agrifoodtech investment increased in 2022, according to AgFunder’s latest agrifoodtech investing report in collaboration with Temasek. Startups raised $640 million in 2022, up from $528 million in 2021.

African agrifoodtech funding has steadily increased since 2019, and investment trends have looked promising over the years. The realization that food systems are highly susceptible to world events and that technology could make these systems more resilient appears to have shocked and spurred industry players into action.
.../..

> Why AgFunder invested in Tablepointer, ​AFN, by Angela Tay, senior investment associate at AgFunder

Efficient energy usage is a vital component of Singapore’s infrastructure going forward. According to the most recent report from Nordic Innovation House, roughly 80% of the nation’s electricity consumption comes from the industrial and commerce and services sector. As population grows and consumption rises, resource-strapped Singapore has an “urgent need to ensure greater sustainability in the energy sector.”

For businesses especially, energy is one of the easiest elements to manage, and yet is often one of the most overlooked because staff have neither the time nor the right skills to implement energy conservation practices or maintain equipment on their premises.

Tablepointer aims to be the partner of such businesses, helping them optimise energy usage and increase profitability.

We see strong parallels between Tablepointer’s energy management solutions and the farm management hardware and software category.

The Tablepointer team installs IoT devices at each customer’s location(s) that collect data from the most energy-consuming equipment such as air conditioners, refrigerators, and exhaust fans. Tablepointer’s algorithms constantly self-optimise to determine the location’s energy needs using the gathered ambient and operational data. Tablepointer then installs automatic controls that regulate each piece of equipment based on trained demand.

24/04/2023
 

> The Week in AgriFoodTech: Canopy raises $60m to help forests, CropX nets $30m for farm management, AFN, by Jennifer Marston and Lucy Ngige

This week, non-profit organization Canopy raised funds to help restore forests and farm management platform CropX landed $30 million. Restaurant tech platform Odeko secured $53 million, while a new CRISPR-based research project kicked off and one Southeast Asia nation green-lighted production of non-browning bananas.

> Pivot Bio pilot replaces synthetic nitrogen on nearly 1m acres of farmland, AFN, by Jennifer Marston, April 19, 2023
- Growers replaced synthetic nitrogen on 725,000 acres and avoided more than 80,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent, according to the results of Pivot Bio‘s 2022 N-OVATOR pilot program and its 2023 expansion.
- N-OVATOR is for growers using Pivot Bio’s microbe-based nitrogen-fixing product to replace synthetic nitrogen and reduce on-farm emissions.
- In 2023, the program has expanded beyond a pilot and is open to all Pivot Bio customers for the first time.
See agfundernews.com

Hard road, by Nicolae Grigorescu

05 - 24/04/2023
 


Share of e-commerce transaction value / account-to-account payments are becoming more popular everywhere

01 - 24/04/2023
 


Apple in China down

02 - 24/04/2023
 


US AM radio stations down

03 - 24/04/2023
 


College costs and Students' debts up

04 - 24/04/2023
 


Young people not in education, employment or training

05 - 24/04/2023
 


Returning from fair by Nicolae Grigorescu

06 - 10/04/2023
 



The Little Girl with Red Headscarf by Nicolae Grigorescu

07 - 24/04/2023
 


Gazette de vitisphere.com,
portail vitivinicole

 



 
The Efita newsletter is sponsored by:
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The truth about soil's ability to sequester carbon, in Successful Farming

Much fanfare accompanies programs that pay farmers to sequester green-house gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide in their soils. Yet, questions linger as research casts doubt on whether the promise equals reality.

“Just about everywhere we look, there are claims about carbon sequestration being akin to the holy grail for agriculture and, by extension, the environment,” says Ben Palen, a fifth-generation Kansas farmer and manager at Ag Management Partners. “There is nothing wrong with modest improvement, but often the promise and the reality do not match.”

“I worry that we are selling ourselves a pie-in-the-sky dream we might not realize, and that it could come back to bite farmers and ultimately not get us any further down the road toward reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” says Gregg Sanford, senior scientist, Department of Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
.../...
“If you want to join a carbon market, especially in the Upper Midwest, make sure you understand what happens if the sample shows you have not sequestered carbon, which could be through no fault of your own,” she says. “You could have grown a beautiful cover crop. You could have successfully grown no-till corn and soybeans and still not see your organic matter number move.”

The higher the organic matter is, the harder it is to improve it. Jodi DeJong-Hughes, University of Minnesota Extension soil and water quality educator, says if your organic matter is over 4%, it’s going to take a very long time to build more soil carbon. She also says she would like to see farmers paid by the practice rather than be on the hook for a certain carbon number by the end of the contract.

“Ultimately, no-till, cover crops, and integrating livestock are fantastic practices that have so many benefits to the farm that should be the focus. And carbon is this fantastic thing that may come along with it,” says Gregg Sanford, senior scientist, Department of Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
See agriculture.com


Girl With Yellow Headscarf, by Nicolae Grigorescu

08 - 24/04/2023
 



Climate change: Fossil fuel emissions from electricity set to fall - report, By Matt McGrath, April 12, 2023
.../...
The major developments are the continuing rise of solar and wind as economically viable sources of electricity. Around the world, solar grew by 24% last year, enough to meet the annual demands of a country as big as South Africa.

Taken together with nuclear and hydropower, clean sources produced 39% of global electricity in 2022. The report finds that electricity produced last year was, in effect, the cleanest ever made.

But despite this, carbon emissions from the sector also continued to rise, as coal use edged up.
.../...
NB : China added around 40% of the world's new solar panels last year, with large numbers of rooftop installations

See bbc.com
24/04/2023
 



The (exaggerated? - GW) danger of ESG, by Professor Todd Zywicki and Chelsea Follett

Environmental, social, and corporate governance, or ESG, has become a powerful movement in recent years.

Its advocates say that rather than maximizing profits, companies and investors should pursue other goals, such as increasing workplace diversity and fighting climate change.

But who decides on these goals, how to define them, how to measure them, and how best to reach them? And what is the impact of ESG, especially as it becomes embedded in public policy and regulations?

In this episode of the Human Progress Podcast, Professor Todd Zywicki joins Chelsea Follett to discuss these questions and more.

See video
See humanprogress.org


Oils' prices

06 - 24/04/2023
 


Amazon Game not that popular

07 - 24/04/2023
 


The need for alternative fuels for aviation

08 - 24/04/2023
 


Twitter generates less traffic to news and media websites than Facebook...

09 - 24/04/2023
 



Millennials: non owners

10 - 24/04/2023
 



Six steps to cleaner lithium extraction, by Andrew Z. Haddad et al.

The challenge of sustainably mining and processing lithium for batteries and other green technologies “represents a rare opportunity in which the needs of fundamental research and global policy are aligned”, write six researchers. The time is ripe for the industry to upgrade its inefficient, wasteful and damaging methods, which have changed little over the past century. “If nothing changes, simply ramping up lithium production at existing sites could negate the benefits of the clean technologies they power,” they write.

See nature.com
24/04/2023
 

See nature.com
24/04/2023
 



5 major regional agricultural belts in the U.S., by Brian Boyce, April 13, 2023

There’s an old saying in farm country, that when times are tough, it’s time to tighten up the belt. But to which belt do they refer? With so many different kinds of agriculture pressure giving producers the heebie geebies, the belt in which they live and operate may determine what needs tightened. The U.S. has long described its geographic regions as beltways, and to that extent we’ve all heard of the following: the Corn Belt, Wheat Belt, Cotton Belt, Rust Belt, and Sun Belt.
.../...
See agdaily.com


US White-Black Gap Closed!?!

11 - 24/04/2023
 



Refining more and more / le boom du raffinage

12 - 24/04/2023
 



US House Building Down

13 - 24/04/2023
 



About 18,000 Cattle Are Killed in Fire at Dairy Farm in Texas

One employee was left in critical condition after an explosion and blaze in Dimmitt, Texas, officials said. A thick plume of smoke mushroomed over the plains.
See nytimes.com


Bees – Parasites, Pesticides, And Climate Change, by Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA — March 14, 2023

Bees are vital to our lives; without them, there would be no almonds, and few apples, onions, blueberries, carrots, or even, perish the thought, coffee. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, "more than half of North America’s 4,000 native bee species are in decline, with 1 in 4 species at risk of extinction.”

The standard narrative in the words of Food and Water Watch is that “Bee colonies are in the midst of a massive die-off, thanks to dangerous pesticides that poison them and destroy their habitats.” A new study in Nature debunks that belief.
See acsh.org


European youth unemployment / Chomage des jeunes européens

14 - 24/04/2023
 



New Farming Robot Uses AI to Kill 100,000 Weeds per Hour, by Loukia Papadopoulos, Apr 27, 2021

The autonomous weeder could soon replace weed laborers with high-power lasers.

Once spotted the autonomous weeder proceeds to kill them using carbon dioxide lasers. Not bad for a robot!

The robot is so efficient that it can remove more than 100,000 weeds per hour and weed 15 to 20 acres of crops in one day. This task would take laborers weeks to achieve as they average about one acre a day.

What's the catch? The robot is pretty pricey. We don't have exact numbers yet but Carbon Robotics' CEO Paul Mikesell told the Seattle Times it costs "hundreds of thousands of dollars."

However, if you add the costs of laborers over time the robot could pay for itself in two to three years. Maybe that's why it's proving such a popular item. “We have more requests for machines than we can fulfill," Mikesell added.
See interestingengineering.com


Massive mosquito factory in Brazil aims to halt dengue, by Mariana Lenharo, 14 April 2023

Facility will produce up to five billion bacteria-infected mosquitoes per year.

A mosquito factory will be built in a location yet to be determined in Brazil to supply the WMP’s ambitious initiative (WMP: World Mosquito Program), in partnership with the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), a Brazilian public science institution in Rio de Janeiro. The facility should begin operating in 2024 and will produce up to five billion mosquitoes per year. “This will be the biggest facility in the world” to produce Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes, says Scott O’Neill, a microbiologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and head of the WMP. “And it will allow us in a short period of time to cover more people than in any other country.” Brazil has one of the highest rates of dengue infection in the world, reporting more than two million cases in 2022.

Despite the positive results from past mosquito releases, researchers expect that it will be challenging to operate the technology at such a massive scale.
.../...
See nature.com


French peasant woman with a bag on her back, by Nicolae Grigorescu

09 - 24/04/2023
 



California researchers attempt ocean climate solution, by Julie Watson, April 21, 2023

Atop a 100-foot barge tied up at the Port of Los Angeles, engineers have built a kind of floating laboratory to answer a simple question: Is there a way to cleanse seawater of carbon dioxide and then return it to the ocean so it can suck more of the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere to slow global warming?

Called the lungs of the planet, the ocean, whose plants and currents take in carbon dioxide, has already helped the Earth tremendously by absorbing 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions since the Industrial Revolution and capturing 90 percent of the excess heat from those emissions. Acting as a giant carbon sink, it has been a crucial buffer in protecting people from even worse effects of early climate change.

Seawater can store 150 times more carbon dioxide per unit volume than air, roughly. But absorbing the greenhouse gas has come at a cost, causing oceans to become more acidic, destroying coral reefs and harming marine species, including impeding shellfish from building their skeletons.
.../...
Researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering built the demonstration system in two years. One thing that distinguishes the process is that it produces hydrogen. To remove a metric ton of carbon dioxide, about 220 metric tons of water needs to flow through the system. That produces 35 kilograms of hydrogen, Sant said.

Sant founded the Los Angeles-based startup Equatic to scale up the project. It would generate revenue from selling the hydrogen, as well as carbon credits that companies, like those in the airline industry, can claim to balance out their pollution, he said. The aim is to remove the carbon at a cost well below $100 a metric ton. The hydrogen would be produced at less than $1 per kilogram, which would be substantially less than the current cost of cleanly-produced hydrogen.
See apnews.com


Peasant Woman with Pitcher, by Nicolae Grigorescu

10 - 24/04/2023
 



Our World In Data: We published a redesign of our work on the Ozone Layer

The ozone layer plays a vital role in making the planet habitable for us and other species. High in the atmosphere – between 10 to 50 kilometers above the earth’s surface – the ozone layer absorbs most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation.

But, during the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, humans were emitting large quantities of substances that depleted the ozone layer. This led to the creation of ozone holes at the earth’s poles, exposing life to higher levels of ultraviolet radiation and increasing the risks of skin cancer in humans.

During the 1980s, the world came together to form an international agreement to reduce – and eventually eliminate – emissions of these depleting substances. The political agreements were very effective. Since then, global emissions have fallen by more than 99%.

The ozone holes have stopped growing and are now starting to close.

Our redesigned page includes all of our data, visualizations, and writing on the ozone layer, its depletion, and its path to recovery.

 


Technology over the long run: zoom out to see how dramatically the world can change within a lifetime

It is easy to underestimate how much the world can change within a lifetime. Bringing to mind how dramatically the world has changed can help us see how different the world could be in a few years or decades.



Our World In Data: How does age standardization make health metrics comparable?

We’d like to compare the rates of health outcomes, such as the death rate from cancer, across countries and over time.

But there’s a problem: we know that age is a significant risk factor for cancer and many other diseases, and countries can have very different age structures. For example, one country might have a much older population than another. The age structure within a country also changes over time as the population ages.

What do we do? How can we compare the rates of health outcomes across countries and over time?

The answer is age standardization. Age standardization involves adjusting the observed rates of a particular health outcome to a “standard population” with a specific age structure. This allows us to compare rates of health outcomes without age differences being an issue.

In this article, we show step by step how the adjustment for age standardization works.



Old Irish joke

One night, Mrs McMillen answers the door to see her husband’s best friend, Paddy, standing on the doorstep.

“Hello Paddy, where is my husband? He went with you to the beer factory.”

Paddy shakes his head. “Ah, Mrs McMillen, there was a terrible accident at the beer factory, your husband fell into a vat of Guinness and drowned.”

Mrs McMillen starts crying. “Oh don’t tell me that, did he at least go quickly?”

Paddy shakes his head. “Not really – he got out three times to pee!”

 


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