Study Finds That Weed Puts You at Higher Risk for Hospitalization – Futurism

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Image by RODNAE Productions

This ones a downer: getting high might also put you at a higher risk of landing in the emergency room.

A study published Monday in the journal BMJ Open Respiratory Research found that cannabis consumers were 22 percent more likely to end up in the ER or be hospitalized than those who didnt smoke weed.

The study,which examined the health records of over 35,000 people in Ontario, Canada, controlled for 31 potentially confounding variables including histories of substance abuse, asthma, and mental and physical disorders. The initial 35,000 was narrowed down to a control group of around 10,000, compared against just over 4,800 self-reported potheads.

The researchers do seem to have something of an axe to grind more on that in a moment but the findingsare striking, especially in the context of the widespread sentiment that cannabis is more or less harmless as legalization continues to spread.

"Cannabis use is not as benign and safe as some might think," study author Nicholas Vozoris told CNN in an email. "Our study demonstrates that the use of this substance is associated with serious negative outcomes, specifically, [emergency department] visits and hospitalizations."

Vozoris was more explicitin remarks to the Daily Beast, opining that "cannabis use needs to be discouraged and reduced in the population, so as to help prevent serious adverse health consequences from happening to individuals and to protect our fragile health-care systems from further strain."

That bit of moralizing aside, its worth noting that the study found "no significant association" between smokin dope and respiratory related ER visits, and that the increased likelihood for ending up in the hospital was for all causes.

In fact, according to Vozoris himself in the same CNN interview, "physical bodily injury" was the leading cause of hospitalization among the studied stoners so it's conceivable that hapless stoners are blazing up and then accidentally injuring themselves. That's not exactly harmless, but it does paint a very different picture from the specter of some serious, yet-unidentified pulmonary or cardiac risk factor.

It's also worth noting what the studydidn't control for: income. In other words, it's not unlikely that a confounding variable could be at play in the form of cannabis users skewing poor, which has itself been linked with higher hospitalization rates. And if we want to get really far into the weeds, it's not entirely clear whether residents of Ontario are representative of the broader population in the first place.

Needless to say, more research is needed. But in the meantime, maybe its safer to stick to the couch after a heavy bong rip instead of, yknow, driving your car or taking up parkour. But if you're really worried about your weed safety, its probably worth worrying more about counterfeit and unregulated THC cartridges instead.

More on weed:Smoking Weed Makes You Nicer and Less Greedy, Scientist Says

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Study Finds That Weed Puts You at Higher Risk for Hospitalization - Futurism

Crypto Startup in Crisis Insists That Its CEO Isn’t Trying to Flee the Country – Futurism

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"Any reports that the Celsius CEO has attempted to leave the US are false."No Worries!

In news that we definitely, one hundred percent believe, with absolutely no hesitation: Alex Mashinsky, CEO of anguished crypto lending firm Celsius, did NOT attempt to flee the US amid the ongoing bitcoin crash, as a Celsius spokesperson has clarified to Cointelegraph.

The company was moved tospeak out after widely-followed crypto analyst and investor Mike Alfred alleged, in a Sunday tweet, that Mashinsky had tried to board an international flight at the New Jersey's Morristown airport, but was barred from exit by authorities.

"All Celsius employees including our CEO are focused and hard at work in an effort to stabilize liquidity and operations," said the representative, in response to the claim. "To that end, any reports that the Celsius CEO has attempted to leave the US are false."

Alfred clarified that his intel came from an anonymous source, who claimed that the besieged CEO was en route to Israel.

The situation is very he-said, she-said, and some Celsius loyalists were quick to note that the allegation suspiciously comes on the heels of last week's short squeeze, in which holders of Celsius' native coin, called CEL, were briefly able to boost the price of the asset.

But honestly, if Mashinsky was attempting to skedaddle, it wouldn't be that surprising. His trading enterprise halted all withdrawals and exchanges earlier this month, placing it near the center of the ongoing crypto crisis. A lot of folks are unable to access the resources they put into the platform, and the company is currently under investigation by several state regulators.

And at the end of the day, whether Mashinsky was actually trying to escape the country and with it, perhaps, billions of dollars of responsibilities the fact that the accusation is believable enough for the company to feel the need to issue a response isn't exactly a promising sign for any organization.

More on the bitcoin crisis: Financial Planner Desperately Explains to Clients Why the Bitcoin Crash Is Good, Actually

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Crypto Startup in Crisis Insists That Its CEO Isn't Trying to Flee the Country - Futurism

Scientists Puzzled by Star That Exploded in Supernova But Somehow Survived – Futurism

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Maybe thereis something to the legend of the phoenix.

Scientists are perplexed by a mysterious star, believed to have been completely annihilated in a powerful supernova only to be found still alive, burning brighter than ever before.

According to a press release, the undead star in question was believed to have met its demise in a supernova back in 2012. And while there have been some cases of stars living through "partial" supernovas, no observed star has been known to survive a Type Ia explosion the most powerful of its kind which only goes to show how much there still is to learn about the life cycle of a star.

The researchers, whose work was published in The Astrophysical Journal, made their discovery by comparing images taken by NASA's Hubble Telescope before and after the supernova occurred back in 2012.

"We were expecting to see one of two things," said Curtis McCully, a postdoctoral researcher at University of California, Santa Barbara and lead author of the study, in the statement. "Either the star would have completely gone away, or maybe it would have still been there, meaning the star we saw in the pre-explosion images wasnt the one that blew up."

But what they actually found was striking. McCully added: "Nobody was expecting to see a surviving star that was brighter. That was a real puzzle."

The team speculates that the event, dubbed SN 2012Z, was actually a Type Iax explosion, which is a weaker explosion than a true Type Ia. Scientists have previously suggested that this less powerful death of a star is actually a "failed" thermonuclear meltdown and this new discovery could provide evidence for that suspicion.

As for the extra wattage? The team suggests that the failed explosion wasn't strong enough to blow too much of the star's material away, and a great deal of celestial shrapnel fell back onto itself as a result. A white dwarf also has a lot of concentrated weight, and, counterintuitively, when a star loses mass, it grows in volume, which is what they saw with SN 2012Z.

The research could help fill in some gaps and shed some light on why a star appeared to have cheated death.

"This star surviving is a little like Obi-Wan Kenobi coming back as a force ghost in Star Wars," said co-author Andy Howell from UC Santa Barbara, in the statement. "Nature tried to strike this star down, but it came back more powerful than we could have imagined."

More on star death: Scientists Spot Dying Star Brutally Tearing up Its Unfortunate Planets

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Scientists Puzzled by Star That Exploded in Supernova But Somehow Survived - Futurism

Startup Says It’s Honing in on Simple Solution for Practical Fusion Power – Futurism

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Yet another startup says it's nearing tests for a system that could once and for all prove the technology can actually generate more energy than it consumes, The New York Times reports.

Seattle-based startup Zap Energy says its approach to fusion energy potentially an entirely green source of renewable energy is far simpler and cheaper than other attempts.

But critics are crying foul, arguing that we're merely stuck in yet another round of "fusion energy fever," according to the report.

Despite Zap Energy and several dozen other startups claiming fusion energy could be right around the corner, it's historically proven to be one of the hardest energy nuts to crack since the 1950s.

Scientists have yet to create a system that can reliably produce more energy than it needs to kickstart the reaction, which itself often proves highly volatile and hard to predict.

But that hasn't stopped these startups from repeatedly making hype-fueled claims about the steps they've taken towards practical nuclear fusion, year after year.

Zap Energy is hoping to scale things down and develop a kind of system that has already been ditched by other fusion companies in favor of much bigger and more complex reactors, according to NYT.

The company is hoping to produce a surplus of energy or at least break even by compressing a cloud of particles called a "shaped plasma gas" with a magnetic field inside a six-and-a-half foot vacuum tube, a process known as a "sheared flow Z-pinch."

But critics still aren't impressed.

"That these claims are widely believed is due solely to the effective propaganda of promoters and laboratory spokespersons," Daniel Jassby, a retired plasma physicist at Princeton University, told the newspaper.

If Zap Energy is indeed able to turn its ambitious plans into reality a big if, judging by the last 70 or so each of its reactors would be able to power at least 8,000 homes, the company claims.

The company still has some ways to go, and is still working on constructing a power supply beefy enough to compress the plasma, according to the NYT.

Only once the reactor kicks into action,after all, will we be able to evaluate if there's any truth to their claims.

Updated to more accurately reflect Zap's timeline and goals.

READ MORE: A Big Step Toward Fusion Energy Is Hailed by a Seattle Start-Up [The New York Times]

More on fusion: Startup Claims Fusion Power "Breakthrough" Using Massive Gun

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Startup Says It's Honing in on Simple Solution for Practical Fusion Power - Futurism

Stranded Oil Tanker That Could Start Leaking Any Time Now, Experts Warn – Futurism

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Time's running out.Time Bomb

In some of the week's worst environmental news, a stranded oil tanker off the coast of Yemen could make the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill "look like a beach party," according to a Bloombergop-ed published yesterday.

The tanker holds 1.1 million barrels of oil and is pretty much a done-in rust bucket doing its best to stay afloat. In May, Al Jazeera reported that the tanker's "structural integrity is on the verge of collapse" and that disaster is only a matter of time. When it spills or blows, Bloomberg says international trade could be halted for weeks.

Most of the international efforts to help Yemen during its bloody civil war have understandably been directed at reducing loss of life, but a two-month truce between opposing sides has opened a small window for the United Nations to address the time bomb that is the FSO Safer.

Bloomberg says the UN has estimated that a Red Sea cleanup would cost around $20 billion, but preventative measures are far less costly. An emergency operation to offload the oil might cost $80 million, with an additional $64 million to replace the ship.

Right now, though, fundraising efforts are short by about $20 million, with the UN even reportedly using crowdfunding the close the gap.

There's no beating around the bush this sounds like a total global disaster both environmentally and economically.

Hopefully somebody in charge does something, because neither human nor environmental systems can tolerate much more disaster right now.

More on worrisome trends: Scientists Say "No Need to Panic" As Sunspot Pointed at Earth Doubles In Size Again

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Stranded Oil Tanker That Could Start Leaking Any Time Now, Experts Warn - Futurism

Robotic Arms Allow Paralyzed Man to Eat Cake With Knife and Fork – Futurism

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Image by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

A high tech pair of robotic arms allowed a partially paralyzed man to eat with a knife and fork, an impressive demonstration that could allow others with disabilities to regain a significant degree of autonomy.

The arms, developed by a team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), work by reading its wearer's brain signals using a brain-machine interface (BMI). This interface then translates these signals into the movement of both robotic arms and with astonishing dexterity, given the micromotor sophistication and strength required to manipulate cutlery.

In experiments involving a patient who hadn't been able to use his fingers for around 30 years, an impressive video shows the appendages cutting a piece of cake with a knife and fork, then popping it into the man's mouth.

It's the culmination of 15 years of robotics and neural science research at the APL, whose efforts were sponsored until 2020 by the US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

"This shared control approach is intended to leverage the intrinsic capabilities of the brain machine interface and the robotic system, creating a best of both worlds environment where the user can personalize the behavior of a smart prosthesis," said Francesco Tenore, co-author of a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Neurobotics, in a statement.

"Although our results are preliminary, we are excited about giving users with limited capability a true sense of control over increasingly intelligent assistive machines," he added.

It's a big step in the right direction, achieving impressive degrees of dexterity which is crucial to actually be of help in everyday life.At the same time, as the video shows, the process is still agonizingly slow and would almost certainly struggle with tougher foodstuffs than a tasty pastry.

"In order for robots to perform human-like tasks for people with reduced functionality, they will require human-like dexterity," explained David Handelman, first author and senior roboticist at APL, in the statement. "Human-like dexterity requires complex control of a complex robot skeleton."

READ MORE: Robotic arms connected directly to brain of partially paralyzed man allows him to feed himself [Frontier Science News]

More on BMIs: Scientists Express Concern at Elon Musk's Neuralink Brain Chip

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The Software of the Gaps: An Excerpt from Non-Computable You – Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

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There are human characteristics that cannot be duplicated by AI. Emotions such as love, compassion, empathy, sadness, and happiness cannot be duplicated. Nor can traits such as understanding, creativity, sentience, qualia, and consciousness.

Or can they?

Extreme AI champions argue that qualia and, indeed, all human traits will someday be duplicated by AI. They insist that while were not there yet, the current development of AI indicates we will be there soon. These proponents are appealing to the Software of the Gaps, a secular cousin of the God of the Gaps. Machine intelligence, they claim, will someday have the proper code to duplicate all human attributes.Impersonate, perhaps. But experience, no.

AI will never be creative or have understanding. Machines may mimic certain other human traits but will never duplicate them. AI can be programmed only to simulate love, compassion, and understanding.

The simulation of AI love is wonderfully depicted by a human-appearing robot boy brilliantly acted by a young Haley Joel Osment in Steven Spielbergs 2001 movie A. I. Artificial Intelligence. Before activation, the robot boy played by Osment is emotionless. But when his love simulation software is turned on, the boys immediate attraction to his adoptive mother is convincing, thanks to Osments marvelous acting skill. The robot boy is attentive, submissive, and full of snuggle-love.

But mimicking love is not love. Computers do not experience emotion. I can write a simple program to have a computer enthusiastically say I love you! and draw a smiley face. But the computer feels nothing. AI that mimics should not be confused with the real thing.

Moreover, tomorrows AI, no matter what is achieved, will be from computer code written by human programmers. Programmers tap into their creativity when writing code. All computer code is the result of human creativity the written code itself can never be a source of creativity itself. The computer will perform as it is instructed by the programmer.

But some hold that as code becomes more and more complex, human-like emergent attributes such as consciousness will appear. (Emergent means that an entity develops properties its parts do not have on their own a sum greater than the parts can account for.) This is sometimes called Strong AI.

Those who believe in the coming of Strong AI argue that non-algorithmic consciousness will be an emergent property as AI complexity ever increases. In other words, consciousness will just happen, as a sort of natural outgrowth of the codes increasing complexity.

Such unfounded optimism is akin to that of a naive young boy standing in front of a large pile of horse manure. He becomes excited and begins digging into the pile, flinging handfuls of manure over his shoulders. With all this horse poop, he says, there must be a pony in here somewhere!

Strong AI proponents similarly claim, in essence, With all this computational complexity, there must be some consciousness here somewhere! There is the consciousness residing in the mind of the human programmer. But consciousness does not reside in the code itself, and it doesnt emerge from the code, any more than a pony will emerge from a pile of manure.Like the boy flinging horse poop over his shoulder, strong AI proponents no matter how insistently optimisticwill be disappointed. There is no pony in the manure; there is no consciousness in the code.

Are there any similarities between human brains and computers? Sure. Humans can perform algorithmic operations. We can add a column of numbers like a computer, though not as fast. We learn, recognize, and remember faces, and so can AI. AI, unlike me, never forgets a face.

Because of these types of similarities, some believe that once technology has further advanced, and once enough memory storage is available, uploading the brain should work. Whole Brain Emulation (also called mind upload or brain upload) is the idea that at some point we should be able to scan a human brain and copy it to a computer.1

The deal breaker for Whole Brain Emulation is that much of you is non-computable. This fact nixes any ability to upload your mind into a computer. For the same reason that a computer cannot be programmed to experience qualia, our ability to experience qualia cannot be uploaded to a computer. Only our algorithmic part can be uploaded. And an uploaded entity that is totally algorithmic, lacking the non-computable, would not be a person.

So dont count on digital immortality. There are other more credible roads to eternal life.

1 Becca Caddy, Will You Ever Be Able to Upload Your Entire Brain to a Computer? Metro, June 5, 2019. Also see Selmer Bringsjord, Can We Upload Ourselves to a Computer and Live Forever?, April 9, 2020, interview by Robert J. Marks, Mind Matters News, podcast, 22:14.

You may also wish to read the earlier excerpt published here: Why you are not and cannot be computable. A computer science prof explains in a new book that computer intelligence does not hold a candle to human intelligence. In this excerpt from his forthcoming book, Non-Computable You, Robert J. Marks shows why most human experience is not even computable.

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The Software of the Gaps: An Excerpt from Non-Computable You - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

How to Use Apple Notes to Have Secret Chats With Others – Lifehacker

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Photo: Ekaterina_Minaeva (Shutterstock)

Apples Notes app might not be the first option to come to mind when you want to keep a conversation hidden from others. But by using its collaboration features to invite others into a conversationand then deleting the messages when youre doneyou can erase all evidence of your chat. Sure, its nowhere near as safe as using an encrypted messaging app with disappearing messages (and its pretty easy to take screenshots of your shared notes or copy your chats to another app), but the Notes app is a quick and easy option for secret messaging in a pinch.

To get started, open Notes and create a new note. Type something in the note, then tap the three-dots icon in the top-right corner of the page, and tap Share note. You can now tap Share options and disable Anyone can add people. Under Permission, make sure youve selected Can make changes.

Go back one page and select how youd like to share the note with someone else. As long as they have an Apple ID, they will be able to access your note. We went with iMessage to share the note. Once the other person has joined, you can start typing a message and theyll be able to see it pretty much in realtime.

To make it easy to differentiate between your messages and those by your contact, tap the three-dots icon in the top-right corner and select Manage Shared Note. Select Highlight All Changes and go back to your note. When theyve replied to your message, Notes will highlight it in a different color.

When youre done with the conversation, delete everything youve typed first. Then tap the three-dots icon in the top-right corner, go to Share Options, and change the document permission to View only.

Return the previous page, swipe left on the name of your contact, and select Remove. This will stop them from accessing the note further. You can now delete the note from Apple Notes, and with it, all traces of your conversation will be gone.

While Apple Notes (or for that matter, Google Docs) allows you to have collaborative chats, these arent really the apps you want to turn to for true privacy. Ideally, youd want to use encrypted messaging apps like Signal for these conversations.

In Signal, every chat is encrypted by default and the app doesnt save information it doesnt need. Once youve started a chat in Signal, tap the contacts name at the top of the page and select Disappearing Messages. You can set a custom time for these messages and each message in the conversation will automatically disappear after that.

You dont need to manually delete anything or use an unencrypted platform for secret messages. When you upload images to Signal, it has a handy option to automatically blur all faces. Features like these make it far more suitable for private conversations. And if you dont want to use Signal, weve got a list of alternatives for you.

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Wayfinding Software and Smart Kiosk Company Re-Launches as RoveIQ – PR Web

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RoveIQ Kiosk at Avalon Lifestyle Center

NEWPORT, Ky. (PRWEB) June 28, 2022

A successful Kentucky-based wayfinding software and smart kiosk company announced today that the business is changing its name from smartLINK to RoveIQ. Technology from RoveIQ helps visitors of mixed-use properties, city districts, sports arenas, hospitals and universities easily find their way around with customized, interactive, 3D maps on smart kiosks, digital displays or mobile devices.

The name RoveIQ much better represents how we enrich lives through intelligent software designed to move humans both physically and emotionally, said PJ Thelen, CEO of RoveIQ. In todays current environment, people are getting out and are obsessed with creating new and exciting experiences, and RoveIQ elevates each journey whether the desire is to be efficient with time or go in search of a new discovery.

RoveIQ develops software that operates on indoor and outdoor interactive displays, as well as through computer and smartphone browsers. With RoveIQ, businesses and organizations provide customized, 3D maps that help visitors navigate their spaces, while also serving up additional information such as augmented reality selfies, coupons, current events, and advertising. The software provides properties with data analytics, allowing owners and managers to gain meaningful insights and generate additional digital out-of-home advertising revenue. RoveIQ creates an opportunity for mixed-use real estate developments and all types of venues to better communicate with and engage visitors, as well as make their experiences seamless, easy, and enjoyable.

Locations, like the Miami Design District in Miami, Florida, Fashion Island in Newport Beach, California, and Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, use RoveIQ to help visitors navigate their spaces and find specific locations and amenities. Beyond finding what they need, visitors often discover the unexpected and experience moments of delight such as receiving an offer for a store they are about to visit, encouraging them to leverage the technology whenever they visit a RoveIQ property.

How Customers Work with RoveIQRoveIQ software runs on various platforms, from outdoor kiosks to any web browser, and no app needs to be downloaded. Three main elements help property, advertising and operators manage and learn from RoveIQ.

1) RoveIQs CMS (Content Management System) allows users to upload, manage and modify all media, including customized maps, advertising and other content, from a single dashboard.2) The integrated Ad Server lets users schedule, manage and remove advertisements as needed. Programmatic ads (digital advertisements delivered via a service) can help RoveIQ customers generate a return on investment more quickly.3) Data Analytics and Reporting Suite anonymously collect user interactions touch, visual, Wi-Fi and mobile to provide insight into the effectiveness of programs and campaigns.

Upcoming Healthcare Initiative This summer, RoveIQ is releasing software developed specifically for healthcare facilities and hospitals. Integrated with MyChart, the software will provide patients and caregivers with detailed appointment directions including parking, check-in information, navigation within healthcare facilities to easily find the correct parking garage, the exact entrance and location of the hospital department or room, and many other services people need within the facility.

More information about RoveIQs products and services, can be found by visiting roveiq.com or emailing pj@roveiq.com.

# # #

About RoveIQ, roveiq.comRoveIQ is a wayfinding software company based in Newport, Kentucky. Created to help move humans intelligently, RoveIQs software solutions provide customized maps, directories and wayfinding services for smart cities, healthcare, universities, real estate, and entertainment venues. Facilities and venues that use RoveIQ can easily provide visitors with interactive, 3D wayfinding tools that allow users to create and discover unique experiences. For more information, visit roveiq.com.

More on the Rebranding Effort In the last two years, smartLINK has progressed from a company that produces digital signage and wayfinding tools on kiosks into a company that provides advanced wayfinding software with two-way communication between real estate organizations and customers. Customized maps serve trusted information to visitors, while visitor data can be analyzed to provide insights to better serve customers as well as increase revenue through advertising.

This evolution led to a necessary brand and name change. Created in partnership with BrandFuel Co, a branding and marketing firm based in Covington, Kentucky, Thelen and his team landed on the name RoveIQ and the tagline, embark intelligently.

The word rove refers to the companys mission to help enrich peoples lives through wandering and discovering and the IQ suggests exploring leveraging intelligent software with the best information possible, gathered from locals and experts. Rove also brings to mind the common dog name Rover, and dogs are amazing wayfinders by nature. The tagline embark intelligently references a dogs bark.

Other brand elements include a mosaic graphic, which alludes to both data and discovery, as well as various color schemes that can be aligned with clients branding or with specific RoveIQ software products.

Media ContactBeth Strautz773-895-5387beth@vaguspr.com

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French Bulldogs Are Popular and Have Become Armed Robbery Targets – The New York Times

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ELK GROVE, Calif. The French bulldog business is booming for Jaymar Del Rosario, a breeder whose puppies can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. When he leaves the house to meet a buyer, his checklist includes veterinary paperwork, a bag of puppy kibble and his Glock 26.

If I dont know the area, if I dont know the people, I always carry my handgun, Mr. Del Rosario said on a recent afternoon as he displayed Cashew, a 6-month-old French bulldog of a new fluffy variety that can fetch $30,000 or more.

With their perky ears, their please-pick-me-up-and-cradle-me gaze and their short-legged crocodile waddle, French bulldogs have become the it dog for influencers, pop stars and professional athletes. Loyal companions in the work-from-home era, French bulldogs seem always poised for an Instagram upload. They are now the second-most-popular dog breed in the United States after Labrador retrievers.

Some are also being violently stolen from their owners. Over the past year, thefts of French bulldogs have been reported in Miami, New York, Chicago, Houston and especially, it seems across California. Often, the dogs are taken at gunpoint. In perhaps the most notorious robbery, Lady Gagas two French bulldogs, Koji and Gustav, were ripped from the hands of her dog walker, who was struck, choked and shot in last years attack on a Los Angeles sidewalk.

The price of owning a Frenchie has for years been punishing to the household budget puppies typically sell for $4,000 to $6,000 but can go for multiples more if they are one of the new, trendy varieties. Yet owning a French bulldog increasingly comes with nonmonetary costs, too: The paranoia of a thief reaching over a garden fence. The hypervigilance while walking ones dog after reading about the latest abduction.

For unlucky owners, French bulldogs are at the confluence of two very American traits: the love of canine companions and the ubiquity of firearms.

On a chilly January evening in the Adams Point neighborhood of Oakland, Calif., Rita Warda was walking Dezzie, her 7-year-old Frenchie, not far from her home. An S.U.V. pulled up and its passengers exited and lunged toward her.

They had their gun and they said, Give me your dog, Ms. Warda said.

Three days later, a stranger called and said she had found the dog wandering around a local high school. Ms. Warda is now taking self-defense classes and advises French bulldog owners to carry pepper spray or a whistle. Ms. Warda says she does not know why Dezzies abductors gave him up but it could have been his advanced age: Frenchies have one of the shortest life spans among dog breeds, and 7 years old was already long in the tooth.

In late April, Cristina Rodriguez drove home from her job at a cannabis dispensary in the Melrose section of Los Angeles. When she pulled up to her home in North Hollywood, someone opened her car door and took Moolan, her 2-year-old black and white Frenchie.

Ms. Rodriguez said she did not remember many details of the theft. When you have a gun at your head, you kind of just black out, she said.

But footage from surveillance cameras in her neighborhood and near the dispensary appear to indicate that the thieves followed her for 45 minutes in traffic before pouncing.

They stole my baby from me, Ms. Rodriguez said. Its so sad coming home every day and not having her greet me.

It is uncertain how prevalent robberies of French bulldogs are nationally, and some local law enforcement agencies said they do not keep a running count of these particular crimes.

Patricia Sosa, a board member of the French Bull Dog Club of America, said she was not aware of any annual tally. Social media groups created by Frenchie owners are often peppered with warnings. If you own a Frenchie, says one post on a Facebook group dedicated to lost or stolen French bulldogs, do not let it get out of your sight.

Criminals are making more money from stealing frenchies than robbing convenience stores, the posting said.

Ms. Sosa, who has a breeding business north of New Orleans, said the lure of profiting from the French bulldog craze had also spawned an industry of fake sellers demanding deposits for dogs that do not exist.

There are so many scams going on, she said. People think, Hey, Ill say I have a Frenchie for sale and make a quick five, six, seven thousand dollars.

Ms. Sosa said breeders were particularly vulnerable to thefts. She does not give out her address to clients until she thoroughly researches them. I have security cameras everywhere, she said.

French bulldogs, as the name suggests, are a French offshoot from the small bulldogs bred in England in the mid-1800s. An earlier iteration of the Bouledogue Franais, as it is called in France, was favored as a rat catcher by butchers in Paris before becoming the toy dog of artists and the bourgeoisie, and the canine muses that appeared in works by Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Today, the American Kennel Club defines French bulldogs as having a square head with bat ears and the roach back.

In the world of veterinary medicine, Frenchies are controversial because their beloved features their big heads and bulging puppy dog eyes, recessed noses and folds of skin create what Dan ONeill, a dog expert at the University of Londons Royal Veterinary College, calls ultra-predispositions to medical problems.

Their heads are so large that mothers have trouble giving birth; most French bulldog puppies are delivered by cesarean section. Their short, muscular bodies also make it hard for them to naturally conceive. Breeders typically artificially inseminate the dogs.

Most concerning for researchers like Mr. ONeill is the dogs flat face, which can belabor its breathing. French bulldogs often make snoring noises even when fully awake, they often tire easily and they are susceptible to the heat. They also can develop rashes in their folds of skin. Because of their bulging eyes, some French bulldogs are incapable of a full blink.

Mr. ONeill leads a group of veterinary surgeons and other dog experts in the United Kingdom that urges prospective buyers to stop and think before buying a flat-faced dog, a category that includes French bulldogs, English bulldogs, Pugs, Shih Tzus, Pekingese and Boxers.

Theres a flat-faced dog crisis, Mr. ONeill said. French bulldogs, he concluded in a recent research paper, have four times the level of disorders of all other dogs.

These pleadings and warnings have not stopped French bulldogs from rocketing in popularity, propelled in large part by social media. As in the United States, the French bulldog in Britain has been neck and neck with the Labrador for the title of most popular breed in recent years.

Ms. Sosa blamed poor breeding for bad outcomes. Well-bred dogs are relatively healthy, she said.

Mr. Del Rosario, the breeder in Elk Grove, a suburban city just south of Sacramento, says professional football and basketball players have been some of his most loyal customers. He has sold puppies to players for the Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Houston Texans, New York Jets and Arizona Cardinals. Four years ago, the San Francisco 49ers bought Zoe, a black brindle Frenchie that serves as the teams emotional support dog. Two years later, the team added Rookie, a blue-gray French bulldog puppy with hazel eyes, to its canine roster.

Mr. Del Rosarios most expensive Frenchie was a lilac with a purplish gray coat, light eyes that glowed red and a pinkish tint on his muzzle. It sold for $100,000 to a South Korean buyer who wanted the dog for its rare genetics. The dog was one of several hundred puppies that Mr. Del Rosario has sold over the past decade and a half.

He has kept seven Frenchies for his extended family, including his two daughters, 9 and 10 years old. The girls play with the Frenchies at home but Mr. Del Rosario is strict about not letting them walk the dogs alone.

I dont care if youre going to the mailbox, he said. Nope, they just cant take the dogs out by themselves.

With all this stuff going on with these dogs, you just never know.

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French Bulldogs Are Popular and Have Become Armed Robbery Targets - The New York Times

Follow the Money: Drug Discovery Robotics Lab, Clinical Sequencing Platform, More – Bio-IT World

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June 29, 2022 | Funding for single-cell sequencing, small molecule drug discovery, neurological biomarkers, and more.

$245M: Debut Fund for Life Sciences Technology

Biospring Partners, a female-founded and led growth equity firm exclusively focused on B2B life sciences technology companies, announced the closing of its debut fund with north of $245 million in capital commitments from pension plans, fund of funds, endowments, foundations, and family offices. Biosprings investments are working to push the healthcare industry forward by enabling new forms of biopharma manufacturing, diagnostic testing, and software applications that are fundamentally changing how diseases are researched, diagnosed, and treated.

$60M: Series D Funding for Drug Discovery Robotics

Insilico Medicine, a clinical-stage end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company, has completed a $60 million Series D financing and launched an AI-powered drug discovery robotics laboratory. Capital raised in the round will further bolster Insilicos financial position and fuel the growth of its advancing pipeline, including its lead program, which is currently in a Phase I study, and the continued development of its Pharma.AI platform. In addition, the proceeds will fund ongoing global expansion and planned strategic initiatives, including a fully robotic biological data factory to complement Insilicos vast curated data assets.

$52M: Funding Round for Precision Immunology Pipeline

Endpoint Health, a therapeutics company dedicated to addressing unmet needs in immune-mediated acute and chronic diseases, announced the close of $52 million in equity and debt financing. Proceeds from the funding round will extend the companys precision-first platform and expand its therapeutic pipeline to include programs for chronic immune-mediated diseases. In addition, proceeds will be used to advance Antithrombin III, the companys first precision therapy, to a Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of sepsis. Sepsis is responsible for one in every five deaths worldwide, yet there are few FDA-approved therapies to treat the condition.

$43M: Series F Funding for Cancer Profiling

Epic Sciences, a privately held diagnostics company, has completed a $43 million first close of its Series F financing. The company will use the capital from this additional round of private investment to advance its multi-omic platform and expand operations in areas such as single-cell sequencing and data analytics infrastructure. DefineMBC, Epic's novel blood-based test for comprehensively characterizing metastatic breast cancer, has been reporting patient results since April 2022. The test's multi-analyte methods have demonstrated impressive sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and precision.

$40M: Series A Funding for Clinical Sequencing

Watchmaker Genomics, a life sciences company specializing in developing high-stringency applications focused on reading, writing, and editing DNA and RNA, announced that it had secured $40 million in an oversubscribed Series A, bringing total funding to date to $53.5 million. With this Series A round of financing, Watchmaker plans to accelerate investment in its protein engineering platform to deliver a suite of new products that address the demands of clinical sequencing and support emerging applications in single-cell analysis, epigenetics, and cell-free DNA. In addition, the company will expand commercial channels and manufacturing capacity, making these product solutions more broadly accessible to the life science and genomics communities.

$37M: Series C Funding for AI-Enabled Precision Oncology

Proscia, a digital and computational pathology solutions company, has raised $37 million to advance how we understand and treat diseases like cancer. This investment brings Proscia's total funding to $72 million. The financing will enable Proscia to accelerate the adoption of computational pathology, strengthening its market and product leadership. It will also use the capital infusion to scale its commercial operation, broaden its portfolio of computational solutions, build on its DermAI and AI melanoma detection success, and extend digital pathology's first suite of process automation solutions beyond Automated QC.

$36.5M: Venture Fund for Genomics Startups

Illumina and LifeArc, a UK independent medical research charity, joined select U.S. and European investors in participating in Time Boost Capitals 30 million genomics venture fund. Time Boost Capital will provide pound-for-pound match funding to every Illumina Accelerator Cambridge graduate securing between 500,000 and 4 million in new capital from qualified investors within 18 months of acceptance. Since opening in July 2020, Illumina Accelerator Cambridge has launched 13 startups focused on harnessing genomics applications to improve human health, including novel therapeutics, diagnostics, synthetic biology, research tools, and agriculture.

$36M: Award for AI-Powered Viral Study Program

A $36 million award from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a part of the Department of Defense, will enable the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) to establish a research and development program to study how a virus will invade and infect humans. The program, Pathogenesis and Toxicity Forecasting Using Multi-Organoid Systems, or PATMOS, uses WFIRMs Body-on-a-Chip platform to investigate the biochemical changes in viral infections. The platform consists of an advanced 3D model of human tissues or organs. The PATMOS program will infect the 3D organs, or organoids, with different viruses and analyze what happens throughout an infection.

$30M: Series A Funding for Small Molecule Drug Discovery

Anagenex, a drug discovery company pairing large-scale data generation with machine learning to discover the next generation of small molecule medicines, announced that it closed a $30 million Series A financing round. Anagenex will use the funds to expand its novel data-generating platform and build a robust pipeline of programs addressing challenging unmet medical needs. The Anagenex platform iteratively assesses up to billions of compounds in parallel to generate extraordinarily high-quality data. Armed with these enormous datasets and highly accurate models, Anagenex has the tools to address some of the most challenging targets in drug discovery.

$27M: Series B Funding for Heart Disease Diagnostics

Elucid announced closing a $27 Million Series B financing round. The Elucid platform is the only FDA-Cleared and CE-Marked software to quantify plaque morphology validated against tissue specimens objectively. Specifically, the exquisite algorithms developed through machine learning characterize tissue types in the artery wall known to cause heart attacks. The capability to discern complex plaque biology at the cellular and molecular level is powering new applications to derive fractional flow reserve, risk of heart attack/stroke, and expression prediction. This comprehensive approach enables physicians to diagnose the direct cause of chest pain and determine if patients have early-stage heart disease, which alternative methods cannot see.

$25M: Series A Funding for Neurological Diseases

NeuraLight, a company developing objective and sensitive biomarkers for neurological disorders, announced $25 million in Series A funding. The round will support the company as it seeks to improve the design of neurological clinical trials, increase the probability of success for novel neurological therapeutics, and usher in a new era of precision medicine for neurology. NeuraLight leverages proprietary computer vision and deep learning algorithms to extract all relevant oculometric markers from facial videos captured with a standard webcam or smartphone. The companys technology applies to various neurological disorders, initially focused on Alzheimers disease, Parkinsons disease, Multiple Sclerosis, and ALS.

$21M: Series A Funding for Early Detection Cancer Test

Elypta, a Swedish diagnostics company aiming to commercialize the first metabolism-based liquid biopsy for early detection of any cancer, announced the raise of $21 million in a Series A financing round led by Bonnier Ventures. The company will use the capital to develop and validate blood and urine tests for Multi-Cancer Early Detection (MCED) in adults with no cancer symptoms and to detect recurrence in kidney cancer patients. The tests are based on the detailed profiling of human glycosaminoglycansalso known as the GAGomeas biomarkers of cancer metabolism. Detecting stage I cancer is the key challenge here, and whereas other MCED tests based on cell-free DNA struggle to find cancer at this early stage, metabolism-based biomarkers could make a difference.

$19M: Series A Funding for Gastrointestinal Diagnostics

Gemelli Biotech, a company focused on improving health by providing precision diagnostics for gastrointestinal diseases, announced the completion of a $19 million Series A financing. Gemelli will use the capital to accelerate the commercialization of its trio-smart and ibs-smart precision diagnostic tests, including expanding sales and marketing across the US and the scale-up of laboratory and manufacturing capacity. Gemelli has launched two products: trio-smartthe only clinical breath test that measures levels of hydrogen, methane, and hydrogen sulfide to provide clinicians and patients with a complete picture of gut healthand ibs-smarta patented diagnostic blood test for post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome.

$10M: Funding for Immunotherapy Research

The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research and the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy announced a new $10 million commitment to Johns Hopkins University. This investment allows for novel work, advanced immunotherapy research, and lifesaving breakthroughs for cancer patients. The Mark Foundation Centers fundamental research priorities include studying how cancer evades the immune system and spreads. Of the $10 million investment, The Mark Foundation is donating $6 million, and BKI is providing $4 million, helping scientific teams to continue using innovative technologies to determine why certain patients do not respond to immunotherapies.

$2.9M: Funding for Tumor Antibody Drug Conjugates

Spirea Limited, a Cambridge company created to advance a new generation of antibody drug conjugate (ADC) therapeutics, announced that it secured funding of 2.4 million with investments from high-profile UK and US investors. Spirea will use the funds to initiate its pipeline of superior and differentiated ADCs to treat solid tumors. Spireas technology allows for a higher drug-to-antibody ratio, which means more drugs reach the cancer cell for the development of stable and tailored ADCs incorporating a variety of drug payloads at varying potency levels and different modes of action. This method will result in significantly better efficacy and safety profiles for cancer therapeutics.

Undisclosed Funding for Drug Discovery Technology

Optibrium, a drug discovery software developer, announced it had secured further investment from existing investors Kester Capitala UK mid-market private equity firmto develop and commercialize its computer-aided drug discovery technologies, make future appointments to the senior leadership team, and continue expansion across Europe and the United States. Optibriums products enable preclinical drug discovery, focusing on hit to lead and lead optimization phases extracting maximum value from pharmaceutical data to target high-quality compounds and accelerate discovery cycles confidently.

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Follow the Money: Drug Discovery Robotics Lab, Clinical Sequencing Platform, More - Bio-IT World

AMP Robotics and Waste Connections Reach Recycling Technology Milestone – Yahoo Finance

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DENVER, June 28, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AMP Robotics Corp. ("AMP"), a pioneer in AI, robotics, and infrastructure for the waste and recycling industry, has expanded its partnership with Waste Connections, Inc. (TSX/NYSE: WCN), its largest customer. Since late 2020, Waste Connections has booked or deployed 50 of AMPs high-speed robotics systems on plastic, fiber, and residue lines, becoming the largest operator of AI-guided robotics in the industry.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220628005328/en/

AMP Robotics has expanded its partnership with Waste Connections, its largest customer. Since late 2020, Waste Connections has booked or deployed 50 of AMPs high-speed robotics systems on plastic, fiber, and residue lines, becoming the largest operator of AI-guided robotics in the industry. (Photo: Business Wire)

"Its gratifying to reach this milestone with a leader in resource recovery like Waste Connections. Weve worked tirelessly to deliver AI and robotics systems that modernize todays recycling operations by increasing productivity, stabilizing costs, and improving the quality and value of recycled commodities," said Matanya Horowitz, founder and CEO of AMP Robotics. "We remain committed to the continuous enhancement of our AI and automation solutions to stay ahead of industry challenges, exceed customer expectations, and support the industrys sustainability and climate goals."

AMPs technology identifies and recovers plastics, cardboard, paper, cans, cartons, and many other containers and packaging types reclaimed for raw material processing. For example, AMP recovers a portfolio of #1-#7 plastics in a variety of different form factors, colors, and opacities with high precision and purity. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) together account for a majority of recycled plastic demand, with growing interest in polypropylene (PP)a highly recyclable polymer with high demand in food-safe applications and flexibility to accommodate packaging in a variety of shapes and sizes. The ability to precisely separate different plastics and other recyclables with AI-driven sorting is helping recyclers meet the soaring need for sufficient quantities of high-quality recycled content from brands and packaging producers.

Story continues

"Were excited to expand our relationship with AMP," said Dan Kurtz, director of recycling for Waste Connections. "Were impressed by the reliability of the robotics systems and the quality of the end product. We look forward to our continued partnership with AMP as we advance our sustainability initiatives."

AMP has more than 230 deployments in more than 80 facilities across three continents.

About AMP Robotics Corp.

AMP Robotics is modernizing the worlds recycling infrastructure by applying AI and automation to increase recycling rates and economically recover recyclables reclaimed as raw materials for the global supply chain. The AMP Cortex high-speed robotics system automates the identification and sorting of recyclables from mixed material streams. The AMP Neuron AI platform continuously trains itself by recognizing different colors, textures, shapes, sizes, patterns, and even brand labels to identify materials and their recyclability. Neuron then guides robots to pick and place the material to be recycled. Designed to run 24/7, all of this happens at superhuman speed with extremely high accuracy. AMP Clarity provides data and material characterization on what recyclables are captured and missed, helping recycling businesses and producers maximize recovery. With deployments across North America, Asia, and Europe, AMPs technology recovers recyclables from municipal collection, precious commodities from electronic scrap, high-value materials from construction and demolition debris, and valuable feedstocks from organic material.

About Waste Connections

Waste Connections is an integrated solid waste services company that provides non-hazardous waste collection, transfer and disposal services, along with resource recovery primarily through recycling and renewable fuels generation. Waste Connections serves more than eight million residential, commercial, and industrial customers in mostly exclusive and secondary markets across 44 states in the U.S. and six provinces in Canada. Waste Connections also provides non-hazardous oilfield waste treatment, recovery, and disposal services in several basins across the U.S., as well as intermodal services for the movement of cargo and solid waste containers in the Pacific Northwest.

Waste Connections views its Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG") efforts as integral to its business, with initiatives consistent with its objective of long-term value creation. The companys long-term, aspirational ESG targets include the expansion of resource recovery through recyclable commodities. For more information, visit wasteconnections.com/sustainability.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220628005328/en/

Contacts

Carling Spelhaugcarling@amprobotics.com

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AMP Robotics and Waste Connections Reach Recycling Technology Milestone - Yahoo Finance

Filings buzz in the automotive industry: 32% decrease in robotics mentions in Q1 of 2022 – just-auto.com

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Mentions of robotics within the filings of companies in the automotive industry fell 32% between the final quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022.

In total, the frequency of sentences related to robotics between April 2021 and March 2022 was 60% higher than in 2016 when GlobalData, from whom our data for this article is taken, first began to track the key issues referred to in company filings.

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When companies in the automotive industry publish annual and quarterly reports, ESG reports and other filings, GlobalData analyses the text and identifies individual sentences that relate to disruptive forces facing companies in the coming years. Robotics is one of these topics companies that excel and invest in these areas are thought to be better prepared for the future business landscape and better equipped to survive unforeseen challenges.

To assess whether robotics is featuring more in the summaries and strategies of companies in the automotive industry, two measures were calculated. Firstly, we looked at the percentage of companies which have mentioned robotics at least once in filings during the past twelve months this was 51% compared to 33% in 2016. Secondly, we calculated the percentage of total analysed sentences that referred to robotics.

Of the 10 biggest employers in the automotive industry, Denso was the company which referred to robotics the most between April 2021 and March 2022. GlobalData identified 10 robotics-related sentences in the Japan-based companys filings 0.3% of all sentences. Mercedes-Benz mentioned robotics the second most the issue was referred to in 0.13% of sentences in the companys filings. Other top employers with high robotics mentions included Stellantis, Magna and BYD.

Across all companies in the automotive industry the filing published in the first quarter of 2022 which exhibited the greatest focus on robotics came from Schaeffler. Of the documents 2,919 sentences, 13 (0.4%) referred to robotics.

This analysis provides an approximate indication of which companies are focusing on robotics and how important the issue is considered within the automotive industry, but it also has limitations and should be interpreted carefully. For example, a company mentioning robotics more regularly is not necessarily proof that they are utilising new techniques or prioritising the issue, nor does it indicate whether the companys ventures into robotics have been successes or failures.

In the last quarter, companies in the automotive industry based in Asia were most likely to mention robotics with 0.13% of sentences in company filings referring to the issue. In contrast, companies with their headquarters in the United States mentioned robotics in just 0.04% of sentences.

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Filings buzz in the automotive industry: 32% decrease in robotics mentions in Q1 of 2022 - just-auto.com

5 Top Trends in AI Robotics in 2022 – Datamation

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Robotics has made massive advances in recent years. Fields such as Robotics Process Automation (RPA) are being deployed in more and more businesses.

RPA software is needed to combine organizational processes with the actions of the robots and AI inputs. RPA software automates repetitive, labor-intensive, and time-consuming tasks, minimizing or eliminating human involvement to drive faster and more efficient processes across the factory floor. Instead of having dozens of workers in a manufacturing plant, an RPA specialist can program and run robots to perform those duties. Typically, another person is involved to service, maintain, and repair the hardware.

But AI is taking RPA to greater and greater levels of functionality.Here are some of the top trends in AI Robotics:

RPA and AI

The latest trend is for RPA to be integrated with AI. This is an essential element of RPA being able to deal with high-volume, repeatable tasks. By moving these over from humans to robots, these tasks are taken care of in a way that lowers labor costs, workflows are made more efficient, and processes such as those on assembly lines are accelerated.

This is also simplifying the overall field of robotics. Instead of different teams using different software, industrial settings can now combine RPA software and factory automation systems. Historically, the robotics team utilized specific programming languages to deal with the areas such as the kinematics of multi-axis robots. Factory automation technicians used different languages and tools such as Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and shop floor systems. AI is helping to integrate these two worlds and add a greater degree of mobility and autonomy to robots.

For stationary robots to work seamlessly with mobile robots, it is essential that they can exchange information accurately and without failure, said Samir Patel, Senior Director, Robotics Engineering at Kawasaki Robotics USA.

Autonomous Operation

Peter Stone, PhD, Executive Director, Sony AI America notes that robots are moving more and more towards operating in open, uncontrolled spaces that are also occupied by people. Much effort is going into creating self-driving cars that are robust and economically viable. But beyond simple vacuum cleaners, AI is needed to take robotics to the next level.

Beyond creating robots that are viable as useful consumer products (other than for entertainment), there are still challenges for AI and robotics, said Stone.

AI will be needed to take into account thousands of parameters and variables occurring in real time. Many of these are changing constantly many times a second.

Neurosymbolic AI

Whats the next big thing in AI and robotics? Stone thinks it will be neurosymbolic AI.

The current AI boom was initiated by the confluence of the data and computation required to enable neural networks to achieve very impressive results on some very challenging tasks.While important research remains on understanding the full capabilities of neural networks, we are now seeing increased interest in 1) understanding their limitations and 2) integrating them with other tried and true AI algorithms, including symbolic and probabilistic methods.

In the coming years, broad exploration will occur in the field of hybrid neurosymbolic approaches towards applications that are beyond the capabilities of any one approach on its own, said Stone. Just as different regions of the human brain are known to operate differently (e.g. cerebellum vs. visual cortex), next-generation AI systems are likely to integrate differently operating modules. Research in this direction will be particularly useful for advances in general-purpose service robots capable of robust perception, communication in natural language, task and motion planning for object manipulation, and natural human-robot interaction across a wide variety of tasks.

Claims Processing

Over time, more and more tasks lend themselves to automation beyond just simple programming. Organizations are leveraging RPA, for example, to automate actions like understanding whats on a screen and completing keystrokes, and identifying and extracting data.

Health care is a good example, where such systems are being used to validate and process patient claims, said Adam Spotton,Head of Data Science,DNSFilter.

Job Candidates

Anyone posting a job opening typically receives hundreds if not thousands of resumes. AI robotics can be used to sift through them, and even find good candidates who may not immediately tick all the boxes. By training AI to note similar qualifications and other traits, better candidates are proposed and those that might be missed otherwise are given attention.

Amazon has been known to use RPA to find priority candidates for job positions by scanning and selecting resumes, said Spotton. I expect RPA to be a significant AI automation trend moving forward, across industries.

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5 Top Trends in AI Robotics in 2022 - Datamation

OTC receives grant for new automation and robotics program – KOLR – OzarksFirst.com

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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. Ozarks Technical Community College received a $345,725grant from the National Science Foundation for its new automation and robotics program.

The program will debut in August at the Robert W. Plaster Center for Advanced manufacturing (PMC). The grant is funded by the NSFs Advanced Technological Education program, which focuses on training technicians in advanced technology fields.

According to a press release, the grant will improve and expand automation and robotics instruction for manufacturing students at OTC and increase the awareness of automation and robotics career opportunities for middle and high school students.

Its not every day that an institution earns a prestigious National Science Foundation grant, said Danelle Maxwell, OTC manufacturing dept. chair. It is gratifying to know that the NSF finds the curriculum and rigor in this new degree pathway worthy of a significant investment.

Students in the program will learn how to operate and maintain automated systems commonly used in manufacturing.

The college has consulted with our industry partners to equip the Plaster Manufacturing Center with the latest machinery and technology, said Robert Randolph, executive director of the PMC. When we send graduates into a career, they will be ready to work from day one because theyve been trained on the most modern equipment. Plus, this grant will allow the college to engage with young students and encourage them to consider manufacturing as a career.

In addition to automation and robotics, the 120,000 square foot, $40 million Plaster Manufacturing Center will provide training in the following disciplines when it opens in August of 2022:

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OTC receives grant for new automation and robotics program - KOLR - OzarksFirst.com

AI-Guided Robots Are Ready to Sort Your Recyclables – IEEE Spectrum

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Its Tuesday night. In front of your house sits a large blue bin, full of newspaper, cardboard, bottles, cans, foil take-out trays, and empty yogurt containers. You may feel virtuous, thinking youre doing your part to reduce waste. But after you rinse out that yogurt container and toss it into the bin, you probably dont think much about it ever again.

The truth about recycling in many parts of the United States and much of Europe is sobering. Tomorrow morning, the contents of the recycling bin will be dumped into a truck and taken to the recycling facility to be sorted. Most of the material will head off for processing and eventual use in new products. But a lot of it will end up in a landfill.

So how much of the material that goes into the typical bin avoids a trip to landfill? For countries that do curbside recycling, the numbercalled the recovery rateappears to average around 70 to 90 percent, though widespread data isnt available. That doesnt seem bad. But in some municipalities, it can go as low as 40 percent.

Whats worse, only a small quantity of all recyclables makes it into the binsjust 32 percent in the United States and 10 to 15 percent globally. Thats a lot of material made from finite resources that needlessly goes to waste.

We have to do better than that. Right now, the recycling industry is facing a financial crisis, thanks to falling prices for sorted recyclables as well as policy, enacted by China in 2018, which restricts the import of many materials destined for recycling and shuts out most recyclables originating in the United States.

There is a way to do better. Using computer vision, machine learning, and robots to identify and sort recycled material, we can improve the accuracy of automatic sorting machines, reduce the need for human intervention, and boost overall recovery rates.

My company, Amp Robotics, based in Louisville, Colo., is developing hardware and software that relies on image analysis to sort recyclables with far higher accuracy and recovery rates than are typical for conventional systems. Other companies are similarly working to apply AI and robotics to recycling, including Bulk Handling Systems, Machinex, and Tomra. To date, the technology has been installed in hundreds of sorting facilities around the world. Expanding its use will prevent waste and help the environment by keeping recyclables out of landfills and making them easier to reprocess and reuse.

AMP Robotics

Before I explain how AI will improve recycling, lets look at how recycled materials were sorted in the past and how theyre being sorted in most parts of the world today.

When recycling began in the 1960s, the task of sorting fell to the consumernewspapers in one bundle, cardboard in another, and glass and cans in their own separate bins. That turned out to be too much of a hassle for many people and limited the amount of recyclable materials gathered.

In the 1970s, many cities took away the multiple bins and replaced them with a single container, with sorting happening downstream. This single stream recycling boosted participation, and it is now the dominant form of recycling in developed countries.

Moving the task of sorting further downstream led to the building of sorting facilities. To do the actual sorting, recycling entrepreneurs adapted equipment from the mining and agriculture industries, filling in with human labor as necessary. These sorting systems had no computer intelligence, relying instead on the physical properties of materials to separate them. Glass, for example, can be broken into tiny pieces and then sifted and collected. Cardboard is rigid and lightit can glide over a series of mechanical camlike disks, while other, denser materials fall in between the disks. Ferrous metals can be magnetically separated from other materials; magnetism can also be induced in nonferrous items, like aluminum, using a large eddy current.

By the 1990s, hyperspectral imaging, developed by NASA and first launched in a satellite in 1972, was becoming commercially viable and began to show up in the recycling world. Unlike human eyes, which mostly see in combinations of red, green, and blue, hyperspectral sensors divide images into many more spectral bands. The technologys ability to distinguish between different types of plastics changed the game for recyclers, bringing not only optical sensing but computer intelligence into the process. Programmable optical sorters were also developed to separate paper products, distinguishing, say, newspaper from junk mail.

So today, much of the sorting is automated. These systems generally sort to 80 to 95 percent puritythat is, 5 to 20 percent of the output shouldnt be there. For the output to be profitable, however, the purity must be higher than 95 percent; below this threshold, the value drops, and often its worth nothing. So humans manually clean up each of the streams, picking out stray objects before the material is compressed and baled for shipping.

Despite all the automated and manual sorting, about 10 to 30 percent of the material that enters the facility ultimately ends up in a landfill. In most cases, more than half of that material is recyclable and worth money but was simply missed.

Weve pushed the current systems as far as they can go. Only AI can do better.

Getting AI into the recycling business means combining pick-and-place robots with accurate real-time object detection. Pick-and-place robots combined with computer vision systems are used in manufacturing to grab particular objects, but they generally are just looking repeatedly for a single item, or for a few items of known shapes and under controlled lighting conditions.Recycling, though, involves infinite variability in the kinds, shapes, and orientations of the objects traveling down the conveyor belt, requiring nearly instantaneous identification along with the quick dispatch of a new trajectory to the robot arm.

AI-based systems guide robotic arms to grab materials from a stream of mixed recyclables and place them in the correct bins. Here, a tandem robot system operates at a Waste Connections recycling facility [top], and a single robot arm [bottom] recovers a piece of corrugated cardboard. The United States does a pretty good job when it comes to cardboard: In 2021, 91.4 percent of discarded cardboard was recycled, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.AMP Robotics

My company first began using AI in 2016 to extract empty cartons from other recyclables at a facility in Colorado; today, we have systems installed in more than 25 U.S. states and six countries. We werent the first company to try AI sorting, but it hadnt previously been used commercially. And we have steadily expanded the types of recyclables our systems can recognize and sort.

AI makes it theoretically possible to recover all of the recyclables from a mixed-material stream at accuracy approaching 100 percent, entirely based on image analysis. If an AI-based sorting system can see an object, it can accurately sort it.

Consider a particularly challenging material for todays recycling sorters: high-density polyethylene (HDPE), a plastic commonly used for detergent bottles and milk jugs. (In the United States, Europe, and China, HDPE products are labeled as No. 2 recyclables.) In a system that relies on hyperspectral imaging, batches of HDPE tend to be mixed with other plastics and may have paper or plastic labels, making it difficult for the hyperspectral imagers to detect the underlying objects chemical composition.

An AI-driven computer-vision system, by contrast, can determine that a bottle is HDPE and not something else by recognizing its packaging. Such a system can also use attributes like color, opacity, and form factor to increase detection accuracy, and even sort by color or specific product, reducing the amount of reprocessing needed. Though the system doesnt attempt to understand the meaning of words on labels, the words are part of an items visual attributes.

We at AMP Robotics have built systems that can do this kind of sorting. In the future, AI systems could also sort by combinations of material and by original use, enabling food-grade materials to be separated from containers that held household cleaners, and paper contaminated with food waste to be separated from clean paper.

Training a neural network to detect objects in the recycling stream is not easy. It is at least several orders of magnitude more challenging than recognizing faces in a photograph, because there can be a nearly infinite variety of ways that recyclable materials can be deformed, and the system has to recognize the permutations.

Its hard enough to train a neural network to identify all the different types of bottles of laundry detergent on the market today, but its an entirely different challenge when you consider the physical deformations that these objects can undergo by the time they reach a recycling facility. They can be folded, torn, or smashed. Mixed into a stream of other objects, a bottle might have only a corner visible. Fluids or food waste might obscure the material.

We train our systems by giving them images of materials belonging to each category, sourced from recycling facilities around the world. My company now has the worlds largest data set of recyclable material images for use in machine learning.

Using this data, our models learn to identify recyclables in the same way their human counterparts do, by spotting patterns and features that distinguish different materials. We continuously collect random samples from all the facilities that use our systems, and then annotate them, add them to our database, and retrain our neural networks. We also test our networks to find models that perform best on target material and do targeted additional training on materials that our systems have trouble identifying correctly.

In general, neural networks are susceptible to learning the wrong thing. Pictures of cows are associated with milk packaging, which is commonly produced as a fiber carton or HDPE container. But milk products can also be packaged in other plastics; for example, single-serving milk bottles may look like the HDPE of gallon jugs but are usually made from an opaque form of the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) used for water bottles. Cows dont always mean fiber or HDPE, in other words.

There is also the challenge of staying up to date with the continual changes in consumer packaging. Any mechanism that relies on visual observation to learn associations between packaging and material types will need to consume a steady stream of data to ensure that objects are classified accurately.

But we can get these systems to work. Right now, our systems do really well on certain categoriesmore than 98 percent accuracy on aluminum cansand are getting better at distinguishing nuances like color, opacity, and initial use (spotting those food-grade plastics).

Now thatAI-basedsystems are ready to take on your recyclables, how might things change? Certainly, they will boost the use of robotics, which is only minimally used in the recycling industry today. Given the perpetual worker shortage in this dull and dirty business, automation is a path worth taking.

AI can also help us understand how well todays existing sorting processes are doing and how we can improve them. Today, we have a very crude understanding of the operational efficiency of sorting facilitieswe weigh trucks on the way in and weigh the output on the way out. No facility can tell you the purity of the products with any certainty; they only audit quality periodically by breaking open random bales. But if you placed an AI-powered vision system over the inputs and outputs of relevant parts of the sorting process, youd gain a holistic view of what material is flowing where. This level of scrutiny is just beginning in hundreds of facilities around the world, and it should lead to greater efficiency in recycling operations. Being able to digitize the real-time flow of recyclables with precision and consistency also provides opportunities to better understand which recyclable materials are and are not currently being recycled and then to identify gaps that will allow facilities to improve their recycling systems overall.

Sorting Robot Picking Mixed PlasticsAMP Robotics

But to really unleash the power of AI on the recycling process, we need to rethink the entire sorting process. Today, recycling operations typically whittle down the mixed stream of materials to the target material by removing nontarget materialthey do a negative sort, in other words. Instead, using AI vision systems with robotic pickers, we can perform a positive sort. Instead of removing nontarget material, we identify each object in a stream and select the target material.

To be sure, our recovery rate and purity are only as good as our algorithms. Those numbers continue to improve as our systems gain more experience in the world and our training data set continues to grow. We expect to eventually hit purity and recovery rates of 100 percent.

The implications of moving from more mechanical systems to AI are profound. Rather than coarsely sorting to 80 percent purity and then manually cleaning up the stream to 95 percent purity, a facility can reach the target purity on the first pass. And instead of having a unique sorting mechanism handling each type of material, a sorting machine can change targets just by a switch in algorithm.

The use of AI also means that we can recover materials long ignored for economic reasons. Until now, it was only economically viable for facilities to pursue the most abundant, high-value items in the waste stream. But with machine-learning systems that do positive sorting on a wider variety of materials, we can start to capture a greater diversity of material at little or no overhead to the business. Thats good for the planet.

We are beginning to see a few AI-based secondary recycling facilities go into operation, with Amps technology first coming online in Denver in late 2020. These systems are currently used where material has already passed through a traditional sort, seeking high-value materials missed or low-value materials that can be sorted in novel ways and therefore find new markets.

Thanks to AI, the industry is beginning to chip away at the mountain of recyclables that end up in landfills each yeara mountain containing billions of tons of recyclables representing billions of dollars lost and nonrenewable resources wasted.

This article appears in the July 2022 print issue as AI Takes a Dumpster Dive .

Link:

AI-Guided Robots Are Ready to Sort Your Recyclables - IEEE Spectrum

Arbe Robotics (NASDAQ:ARBE) shareholders have endured a 44% loss from investing in the stock a year ago – Yahoo Finance

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It's easy to match the overall market return by buying an index fund. Active investors aim to buy stocks that vastly outperform the market - but in the process, they risk under-performance. For example, the Arbe Robotics Ltd. (NASDAQ:ARBE) share price is down 44% in the last year. That contrasts poorly with the market decline of 18%. Arbe Robotics hasn't been listed for long, so although we're wary of recent listings that perform poorly, it may still prove itself with time. Unfortunately the share price momentum is still quite negative, with prices down 15% in thirty days.

With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies.

View our latest analysis for Arbe Robotics

Arbe Robotics isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect to see good revenue growth. Some companies are willing to postpone profitability to grow revenue faster, but in that case one does expect good top-line growth.

In the last twelve months, Arbe Robotics increased its revenue by 202%. That's a strong result which is better than most other loss making companies. Given the revenue growth, the share price drop of 44% seems quite harsh. Our sympathies to shareholders who are now underwater. Prima facie, revenue growth like that should be a good thing, so it's worth checking whether losses have stabilized. Our monkey brains haven't evolved to think exponentially, so humans do tend to underestimate companies that have exponential growth.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

earnings-and-revenue-growth

You can see how its balance sheet has strengthened (or weakened) over time in this free interactive graphic.

We doubt Arbe Robotics shareholders are happy with the loss of 44% over twelve months. That falls short of the market, which lost 18%. There's no doubt that's a disappointment, but the stock may well have fared better in a stronger market. With the stock down 10% over the last three months, the market doesn't seem to believe that the company has solved all its problems. Given the relatively short history of this stock, we'd remain pretty wary until we see some strong business performance. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Arbe Robotics better, we need to consider many other factors. Take risks, for example - Arbe Robotics has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of.

Story continues

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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Arbe Robotics (NASDAQ:ARBE) shareholders have endured a 44% loss from investing in the stock a year ago - Yahoo Finance

ABB survey finds 70% of US businesses looking to bring production closer to home, robotic automation and workforce upskilling essential to return of…

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Washington, DC, June 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical disputes, raw materials shortages and trade issues that have rocked global economies and supply chains, a majority of U.S.-based companies are planning to relocate production closer to home.

Surveying 1,610 executives in the U.S. and Europe, ABB found that 70% of U.S. businesses are planning changes in their operations, with 37% planning to bring production back home and 33% looking to nearshore and shift their operations to a closer location.

Business leaders are responding to unprecedented supply chain disruptions by putting into place measures to make operations more resilient and adaptable, said Sami Atiya President of ABBs Robotics & Discrete Automation Business, at SelectUSA. While investment in automation plays a key role in flexibility in operations, equally important is investment in education, vocational training, and apprenticeship programs needed to create safer, higher-paying jobs for American workers.

Atiya explained how the increasing need for flexibility and resilience in production is driving the interest in reshoring/nearshoring and, as a result, the demand for more automation. He underscored the role of robotics in facilitating reshoring or nearshoring efforts, addressing supply chain concerns and maintaining global competitiveness for U.S. businesses.

Once confined to the automotive industry, automation and robotics have significantly expanded across multiple industries and sectors across the United States, including logistics, food and beverage, retail, and healthcare. American companies are increasingly turning to automation and robotics driven by the need for greater flexibility in operations, widespread labor shortages and an aging workforce.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, the increase in robot density per 10,000 workers in North America, jumped 28% in Q1 2022 compared to the first quarter of 2021, the highest rate of growth since records have been kept. While in one sector alone, the American Welding Society says the US will face a shortage of 400,000 welders by 2024.

ABBs study also found that American companies are relying more on automation to solve their supply chain woes. 43% of businesses surveyed indicated that they will use automation and robotics to build supply chain resilience, with 75% of US-based businesses noting that robotics and automation will play a significant role in addressing supply chain issues.

Although there is a greater demand for robotics in the United States, ABBs survey found that the rate of investment in automation remains higher in Europe, with 74% of European businesses indicating they will invest in robotics and automation in the next three years compared to 62% in the US.

The role of automation and robotics in reshoring or nearshoring operations in the U.S. also depends on bridging the skills gap in robotics education and better educating and upskilling workers.

Robotics and automation are job creators, requiring new ways of working with new skillsets, noted Atiya We are working with the U.S. government to share ABBs experience in the US and other countries where we operate on how we can accelerate robotics and automation education, vocational training, and apprenticeship programs needed to create safer, and higher-paying jobs for American workers.

Atiya presented at Select USA Tech: The Future of High-Tech Industries alongside other companies including Softbank Group International, GymPass and A-to-Be. In addition to talking about automation and robotics and the growing move to bring production closer to home, Atiya also noted that the business-friendly environment and level of entrepreneurship in the United States fuels ABBs own innovation and growth there.

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ABB in the United States

Since 2010, ABB has invested $14B in the U.S. with plant expansions, operational improvements, state-of-the-art equipment, products, and people, making it the companys largest market. With approximately 20,000 employees in more than 40 manufacturing and distribution facilities, ABB is investing, growing and serving across America through industries that create jobs, encourage innovation and achieve a more productive, sustainable future. ABB Robotics and Discrete Automation operates a robotic facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan serving the automotive, food and beverage, healthcare and other industries.

ABB Robotics & Discrete Automation is a pioneer in robotics, machine automation and digital services, providing innovative solutions for a diverse range of industries, from automotive to electronics to logistics. As one of the worlds leading robotics and machine automation suppliers, we have shipped over 500,000 robot solutions. We help our customers of all sizes to increase productivity, flexibility and simplicity and to improve output quality. We support their transition towards the connected and collaborative factory of the future. ABB Robotics & Discrete Automation employs more than 10,000 people at over 100 locations in more than 53 countries. http://www.abb.com/robotics

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Cobalt Robotics Wins Behavior-based Robotics Innovation Award in the 2022 AI Breakthrough Awards Program – GlobeNewswire

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FREMONT, Calif., June 27, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cobalt Robotics, the only company to automate repetitive manual security and facility tasks with an integrated service which unifies state-of-the-art robotics, machine learning software, and expert human oversight, announced today that it has been selected as a winner in the 5th Annual 2022 AI Breakthrough Awards Program taking home the Behavior-based Robotics InnovationAward.

TheAIBreakthroughAwardsprogram performs the deepest evaluations of theAIindustry each year to recognize and highlight the breakthroughAI companies,technologies, products and services from around the world. Over 2,950 nominations were submitted this year, and this is the second win for Cobalt Robotics which was previously honored in 2019.

We are honored to be selected as the winner of the Behavior-based Robotics Innovation Award from the AI Breakthrough Awards Program. This recognition is a testament to our teams continuous innovation and dedication, Mike LeBlanc, Chief Operating Officer of Cobalt Robotics. Hybrid work schedules, remote workers, and new expectations from employees mean that Safety and Security leaders need to rethink how they provide for their employees. Were proud that Cobalt robots have been able to adapt and respond to these issues so quickly.

Cobalts Remote Guarding Service SolutionCobalts Remote Guarding Service Solution includes state-of-the-art robots with over 60+ sensors including day-night cameras, 360-degree cameras, thermal cameras, depth cameras, LIDAR, and badge reading capabilities. Using machine learning, semantic mapping and novelty detection, the robot can independently identify and flag security-relevant anomalies like people, sounds, motion, doors and windows and missing assets. Each robot has a screen for communication between remote security specialists and people on-site.

In the event of an incident, Cobalts security specialists provide human assistance for complex situations. They will triage the incident, contact appropriate personnel and report back to the security team 24/7/365 based on collaboratively established post orders. They can also provide two-way video from the robot to greet employees, request badge credentials and ensure guest check in.

About Cobalt RoboticsCobalt Robotics is the only company to automate repetitive manual security and facility tasks with an integrated service which unifies state-of-the-art robotics, machine learning software, and expert human oversight. Its technology platform and 24/7 dedicated professional security services team improve safety, security and facility workflows with greater efficiency and predictability at substantially reduced costs, while allowing guards to focus on tasks that require judgment, empathy and decision making. Cobalts mobile robotics help companies make their spaces smarter, safer, and more secure, protecting both their employees and intellectual property. Leading enterprises including General Motors and Slack demonstrate that automation in the workplace is a top to bottom priority with Cobalt. Learn more at cobaltrobotics.com.

Media contact:Kerry MetzdorfBig Swing Communications (for Cobalt Robotics)978-463-2575kerry@big-swing.com

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Cobalt Robotics Wins Behavior-based Robotics Innovation Award in the 2022 AI Breakthrough Awards Program - GlobeNewswire

Mining on the Moon: The NASA Space Robotics Challenge – AZoMining

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Human progress has always been dependent on the restricted resources available on Earth. However, the moon, despite its appearance as a barren rock, could be a treasure mine of rare resources important to Earth's survival.

Image Credit:Voraorn Ratanakorn/Shutterstock.com

The moon has long been considered a desirable location for space mining operations. In the wake of NASA's international space mining expeditions, the moon is likely to be the first commercial mining site in space.

The moon is relatively close to Earth in the solar system, and the connection lags are only a few seconds, making it possible to remotely control robots from Earth. Due to its low gravity, relatively little energy will be required to transport mined materials to Earth's orbit.

Previous geological surveys have demonstrated that the moon possesses three essential resources: water, rare earth metals, and Helium-3.

Extracting water from the Moon is essential for sustaining life and cultivation in outer space. Water on the moon can also be converted into oxygen and rocket fuel.

Helium-3 is an extremely rare isotope of helium among naturally occurring isotopes on Earth. This isotope has been considered a replacement for Uranium-235 as a fuel source for nuclear reactors. Helium is not radioactive; therefore, if Helium-3 proves successful and efficient in nuclear fusion reactors, it can become a source of limitless green energy.

In 2011, NASA discovered titanium ores ten times more abundant on the moon than on Earth. Titanium creates an alloy resistant to extreme temperatures, lightweight, very strong, and corrosion-resistant when mixed with aluminum or iron. It could be utilized to make medical implants, engines, and structural frameworks.

A total of 17 different rare metals, including Yttrium and Scandium, are extremely difficult to find on Earth but could be found on the moon. It is possible to use moon metals in the engines of automobiles and the production of glass and ceramics, electrical devices, radar systems, and superconductors.

Mining on the moon is likely to use various robots for safety and economic reasons. Robotic dozing, excavation, robotic surveying and mapping, handling explosives, and drilling are just a few of the many applications of robotics in mining. Robots can easily handle open pit mining for extracting resources at irregular thick deposits on the surface at shallow depths.

Extracting resources from the moon will have to rely on robots with a high level of autonomy due to the difficulty of establishing a large-scale human presence in space and the unavailability of real-time interplanetary communication.

Although semi-automated mining systems exist on Earth, they rely on advanced infrastructures such as global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), easy access to fuel, well-maintained roads, and maintenance. These facilities will not be available in international space mining missions where robots will face hazardous terrain, a lack of precise positioning systems, restricted power supply, and various other challenges.

In addition to navigating in an unstructured environment and avoiding obstacles without exact satellite positioning, a robot could maneuver and interact with other robots without causing damage. To ensure long-term functioning, each robot should have a high level of intelligence and a multi-robot coordination mechanism.

Cornell University researchers have developed a solution to overcome major obstacles to autonomous robots for collaborative space mining, which include the absence of navigation in hazardous terrain, satellite positioning systems, and the necessity for sensitive robot interactions.

The designed robot extensively uses machine-learning-based robotic perception to achieve precise localization, conceptual mapping of the lunar surface, and object detection to permit precise close-range movement between rovers.

The system is an implementation of autonomous space mining within the NASA SRCP2 framework. The rovers can successfully travel and extract space resources from the simulated lunar environment for lengthy periods when guided by robotic vision.

Periodically, the vision system corrects localization drift and creates a persistent map that provides semantic scene interpretation in rover interaction and obstacle avoidance.

The Space Robotics Challenge is a virtual competition designed to enhance autonomous capabilities and robotic software for space research missions on the surface of distant planets and moons. The competition occurs within a simulation software environment.

The first phase of the competition was completed in June 2017 and centered on the R5 humanoid robot functioning in a virtual Mars environment. It consisted of two rounds of challenges and tasked contestants with enhancing the technology development and dexterity capabilities of humanoid robots to allow them to work alongside and independently of astronauts.

Through these challenges, NASA aims to develop robots that will take part in international space expeditions and set up life-support systems before the arrival of astronauts, build habitats, establish communications, and conduct preliminary scientific research.

The moon has always inspired humanity. Its presence has stimulated a sense of space exploration and a drive to explore uncharted realms. As the population of our planet rises, it will be essential to seek out alternative sources to maintain its natural resources.

However, before humanity launches a serious endeavor to explore the moon and beyond, numerous technological and moral questions must be resolved. Today, establishing the foundation for peaceful growth could go a long way toward uniting nations under a single, global strategy.

NASA. (2022). NASA's Centennial Challenges: Space Robotics Challenge. [Online]. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Available at: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/centennial_challenges/space_robotics/about.html

Sachdeva, R., Hammond, R., Bockman, J., Arthur, A., Smart, B., Craggs, D., & Reid, I. (2022). Robotic Vision for Space Mining. arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.12109v3. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2109.12109

Staedter, T. (2020). Why on Earth Should We Be Mining the Moon? [Online]. Available at: https://now.northropgrumman.com/why-on-earth-should-we-be-mining-the-moon/

Xu, F. (2020). The approach to sustainable space mining: issues, challenges, and solutions. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 738, No. 1, p. 012014). IOP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/738/1/012014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author expressed in their private capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of AZoM.com Limited T/A AZoNetwork the owner and operator of this website. This disclaimer forms part of the Terms and conditions of use of this website.

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Mining on the Moon: The NASA Space Robotics Challenge - AZoMining