what a honeybee sees. The system could be applied to flying vehicles like drones and robots.
The lightweight imaging system, detailed in the Bioinspiration & Biometrics journal, features an artificial bee eye with a camera that aims to recreate an insect's processing and navigation skills.
The bee eye camera uses a curved reflective surface built into acrylic glass with lenses covering the frontal field to replicate an insect's view.
which is used by honeybees to recognize flowers. The paper, which requires registration and is available for free for 30 days,
We present a small single camera imaging system that provides a continuous 280 degree field of view (FOV) inspired by the large FOV of insect eyes.
(1996 Phd Thesis Australian National University) to the full FOV which enables us to remap camera images according to the spatial resolution of honeybee eyes.
spotting early warning signs that the animal isn't feeling so well. Intervene as necessary.
and a earthwork propagation bin that actively distributes earthworms throughout the bed. The conditions inside the dome are monitored
In an ecosystem, assemblages of plants and animals are linked together by a common thread: the sharing of nutrients, the transfer of energy from sunlight to plants and then to animals,
and the recycling of all the elements needed to ensure the survival of the next generation of those living within the boundaries of that geographically defined area.
The Wall street journal reports that firms across the region are adding  beehives  to their headquarters
founder of City Bees, a beehive management and advocacy group in San francisco...While there are no known statistics on how many buildings
and businesses have their own beehives, it is apparent the trend is growing, says Philip Gerrie, president of the San francisco Beekeepers Association.
which worker bees fail to return to their hives, leaving the colony to fend for itself. But it's not just tiny startups with apiaries,
WSJ points to Intel's five beehive and 200 000 bees and the four hives at Google's headquarters.
In addition to pollinating flowers on their grounds and throughout the region, the two companies use the honey in the employee  cafeteria Â
and sour milk German airports use honeybees to sniff out air quality Breath test can detect cancer New remote sensing system can detect explosives
Bumblebees become precision farm workersscientists at ADAS and East Malling Research have come up with a novel way of using bumble bees to deliver minute quantities of bio-fungicide to strawberry flowers.
ADAS and East Malling Research have been using bumble bee pollinator hives which are introduced already commonly to commercial strawberry crops to ensure good pollination.
which fits into the hive. As the bees move through the dispenser a minute quantity of a powdered formulation of the bio-fungicide containing Gliocladium catenulatum adheres to their bodies and legs.
As they leave the hive and begin pollinating they transfer the powder directly to the flowers,
and improvise rapidly just like a"real"animal or insect brain. The project has been funded by the Engineering and Physical sciences Research Council with a £1m grant,
"The prospect of a robotic animal that's as mentally capable as the thing it's trying to mimic might seem exciting,
That's especially pertinent as recent research has indicated that many insects, including bees, have personalities like vertebrates--let's hope they upload a relatively laid-back bee's brain,
lest it go rogue
The kitchen nano gardennothing can be as frustrating as loitering and searching for fresh vegetables from the market.
Robotic Pollinators: who said industrial agriculture was doomed? Robotics engineers are buzzing about a machine with potentially transformative implications for agriculture, surveillance, and mapping:
since the insects are able to efficiently adapt to changes in their environment without receiving orders from one authority.
Community-managed groups working with people, animals and plants. We represent nearly 200 city and school farms, more than 1, 000 community gardens,
three animals at city farmwe are registered a charity which supports, represents and promotes community-managed farms, gardens,
Community-managed groups working with people, animals and plants. We represent nearly 200 city and school farms, more than 1, 000 community gardens,
No part of the animal is wastedthis giveaway is courtesy of Hare & Hart, a leather company that uses only the by-products of the meat industry in Argentina in their leather shorts, jackets, shirts & scarves.
so that no part of the animal is wasted. Additionally, we believe that the people involved in creating our collection should also be treated with consideration and fairness,
Mr. Anderson, the farmer, is wrestling with a particularly tenacious species of glyphosate-resistant pest called Palmer amaranth,
In an attempt to kill the pest before it becomes that big, Mr. Anderson and his neighbors are plowing their fields and mixing herbicides into the soil.
and Mr. Perry said the pest could pose as big a threat to cotton farming in the South as the beetle that devastated the industry in the early 20th century.
it going to be like the boll weevil did said to cotton Mr. Perry, who is also chairman of the Georgia Cotton Commission. oeit will take it away
Everyone is awaiting a prognosis not for an ailing child or pet, but for an iphone.
What feeds his winter crop of lettuce is recirculating water from the 150-gallon fish tank
where the Yorkshire-Lancashire boundary bisects the town hall and cricket pitch. Vegetable beds, herb gardens and orchards have sprung up on sites as varied and previously urban as the railway station forecourt and an elderly people's home, under the aegis of the Incredible Edible Todmorden campaign.
and termites that can eat old cars. If regulation of biohacking is too tight, such innovations or, at least,
and the rising price of honey have made hives, complete with their inhabitants, a target for thieves.
where 18 hives containing about a million bees used to pollinate the strawberry crop were stolen. Police are investigating
who says it was"heartbreaking"to discover so many hives had been stolen.""Beekeeping's not an easy job even at the best of times,"she says."
the government's National Bee Unit-set up to protect the honeybee in England and Wales-says it is"aware"of an increase in thefts.
Satellite tracking It advises keepers to brand wooden hives with their name and address and to keep bees out of sight where possible.
"The Lindseys are already taking steps to protect their remaining hives. They are considering installing satellite tracking devices so the hives'whereabouts can be traced should any be stolen in the future.
Mrs Lindsey feels the police and the authorities need to take the problem more seriously."
In 1952 The british Nobel zoologist Peter Medawar proposed that aging is the simple result of the failure of natural selection to maintain fitness in older animals with declining fertility.
wherein a gene may promote fitness in young fertile animals (and thus be selected for) but become a liability late in life leading to a subsequent decline in fitness.
Besides its sound theoretical basis in the well-known mechanisms of natural selection, the Evolution Theory of Aging has also been tested directly in Drosophila melanogaster by Michael Rose (UCI Professor and cofounder of Genescient.
Dr predicted that he should be able to select populations of long-lived animals by simply selecting for reproductive longevity.
Dr. Rose started with 5 lines of wild type Drosophila flies and selected for reproductive longevity over a 27-year period.
Genescient has carried out several independent experiments to verify that these Methuselah flies are lived indeed long compared to wild type flies.
I carefully monitored the most recent comparative lifespan experiment done in 2010 (Fig. 2). The Methuselah flies (O populations) far outlive their unselected wild type fly B populations.
The selected Methuselah O flies have some 3 or 4 times longer mean lifespan than the non-selected wild type B flies (Fig. 2). This selection experiment is a dramatic verification that evolution modulates the aging process.
Studying gene expression in the wild type and Methuselah flies, Genescient has shown that several hundred genes have altered an expression in the Methuselah flies.
In late 2010, Genescient sequenced the DNA of the wild type and Methuselah flies and again found that more than a hundred genes appear to be altered in the long-lived Methuselah flies.
These experimental results are fully consistent with the Evolution Theory of Aging, which predicts that aging leads to poorly functioning organisms as natural selection for optimal gene function wanes with age.
In summary, we age because of the declining force of natural selection in adult life, which leads to unfit gene expression with age.
and thereby extend Drosophila lifespan. Unfortunately, none of the single compound nutraceuticals tested appeared to significantly extend fly lifespan in our longevity screens.
The mtor inhibition has extended mouse mean lifespan by 33%.%In traditional Chinese medicine astragalus is considered a true tonic that can strengthen debilitated patients and increase resistance to disease in general.
promote peripheral nerve regeneration in rats, and inhibit mtor (a major longevity gene shown by extensive government studies to extend lifespan in mice).
In looking for the best herb in the Indian Ayurvedic medicinal tradition, I soon focused on the potent antidiabetic herb, Pterocarpus marsupium.
More recent studies in animals show potent antidiabetic activity. Published studies have shown also that pterostilbene is a potent anticancer compound.
Theanine may also have positive effects on serotonin levels to promote restful Sleep in rats, theanine is neuroprotective.
Drosophila Longevity Studies Using Treatment with Stemcell 100 The current Stemcell 100 herbal blend has gone through extensive longevity testing with Drosophila fruit flies.
The Drosophila longevity study (see Figs 3 and 4 below) included three cages of fruit flies that were treated with Stemcell 100 (T1 to T3)
Each cage started with 500 fruit flies including 250 males and 250 females. The experiment showed that mean lifespan more than doubled with a 123%increase.
While fruit flies are not people, they are more like us than you might think. Drosophila has a heart and circulatory system,
and the most common cause of death is heart failure. Like humans and other mammals (e g. mice), it is quite difficult to increase their lifespan significantly.
The doubling of mean lifespan by Stemcell 100 outperforms every lifespan enhancing treatment ever tested in flies including experiments using genetic modification and dietary restriction.
The longest living fruit fly receiving Stemcell 100 lived 89 days compared to the longest living untreated control
which lived 48 days. That is an increase in maximum lifespan of 85%which is the equivalent of a person living to be 191 years old!
It is possible that the single longest living fruit fly lived longer for other reasons such as genetic mutation;
For example, the oldest 5%of the treated fruit flies lived 77%longer than the oldest 5%of the control group (see Fig. 4 below
oebig Dog Robot, The Stanley self-driving car (originally covered in THE FUTURIST in May-June 2006.
Co-author Brian Otis, a UW assistant professor of electrical engineering, led the development of a boost converter,
"Otis said. To solve this problem Otis'team built a clock that runs continuously on 1 nanowatt,
about a thousandth the power required to run a wristwatch, and when turned on operates at 350 millivolts, about a quarter the voltage in an AA battery.
The animal is doing well the Royan Research Institute said on Wednesday. The Iranian government has set itself the goal of becoming a pioneer in science and technology in the middle East by 2025.
With the cloning of animals advances in medical research are connected, including the production of antibodies against various diseases,
Under pressure from animal welfare groups, fast-food giant Mcdonald, major meat-processor Hormel and others recently agreed to end the use of tightly-confining pens at their suppliers pig farms.
Battery cage battle Nearly all eggs in the United states come from large facilities where hens are kept in small pens called battery cages.
The Humane Society of the United states and other animal-welfare groups consider them cruel because the birds have little room to move
and can get caught and injured in the cages metal wires. Animal welfare groups say chickens in battery cages are given not enough room to move
the voters made it clear that they wanted changes in the hen habitat, "she says."
JS West became the first company in the United states to install so-called oeenriched cages for its hens.
The birds get twice as much space as in the old battery cages. And the enriched cages have perches,
and nesting boxes where the hens lay their eggs. Jill Benson company, JS West, became the first in the United states to install enriched cages.
While she doesn't think the hens were unhappy in the old cages Benson she says they definitely like the new cages. oewhat was a surprise is that the hens are producing just as many eggs, if not more,
and they re living better. In fact, there less mortality. The company has installed even live webcams so the public can see the hens in the new cages in real time.
Now the humane society is pushing for a federal law that would require these cages nationwide. oethe laws
while not necessarily creating idyllic living conditions for these animals by any means, would be significant advancements,
says Paul Shapiro, head of the society farm-animal program. Uniform rules To her surprise, Benson finds herself on the same side as the humane society."
"to make changes that may not ultimately be in the best interests of either animals, producers or consumers.
Hens peck each other less in smaller cages, for example. And since enriched cages cost more they push up the cost of eggs.
Zhang said ingredients such as crushed corn would be blended with the solid Orgacids in the animal feed at his farm
The idea is to find a way to create the meat without the animal by growing it directly.
such as genetically engineering alligators with salamander DNA so their huge, meaty tails fell off when grabbed with huge tongs
or taking an elephant's trunk, hooking it up to a heart/lung machine and then hooking the other end to a machine that induced the trunk to grow by applying tension.
The growing trunk would then be wrapped automatically in pastry and passed through an oven to produce a continuous stream of fresh, delicious elephant trunk pie.
Meanwhile, on a more practical tack, food scientists in the wake of the food shortages after the Second world war often speculated on the possibility of manufacturing meat
be it a fish tank of tilapia that fertilizes the lettuce, or an outdoor greenhouse planted with tomatoes, peppers, herbs and greenery.
One of the hot new ventures in Silicon valley is founded Nest Labs by Tony Fadell, a former Apple executive,
At the Nest offices in Palo alto, Calif.,there is a lot of talk of helping the planet, as well as the thrill of creating cool technology.
Matt Rogers, 28, a Nest cofounder, led a team of engineers at Apple that wrote software for ipods.
because cows are among the least efficient animals at converting the food they eat into food for humans."
researchers could make products from more exotic animals.""We could make panda meat, I'm sure we could,
"Post said. He believes it will be a relatively simple matter to scale up the operation, since most of the technical obstacles have already been overcome."
or animals for the paper we use every day. This policy will have a particularly important impact in Indonesia,
Welfare issues It is recognised widely that sending animals overseas to slaughter is not the only welfare problem.
good nutrition and veterinary care have a much greater impact over the animals'lifetime. However, live export is a welfare issue that we can fix,
and many have been disturbed deeply to see how some of the animals that they so attentively nurtured are treated after they ve left their property.
These welfare problems are not just the multiple stresses that animals are exposed to during the export process
and slaughter process after the animals have arrived at their destination port. Regulatory authorities also have little control over practices on the ships:
In other animal-risk situations, such as abattoirs, government inspectors are present: the same should be true on live export boats.
Liebman specialty is integrated pest management, or strategies that use nature to accomplish what typically done with pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizer.
the threat of catastrophic disease outbreaks in monocultures, an insatiable demand for nitrogen fertilizer, pesticide-resistant bugs and herbicide-resistant superweeds,
wanted to bring integrated pest management back, but augmented with technology new tools. On 22 acres at Marsden Farm, his team planted three plots with different rotations of crops.
The animals manure came back as fertilizer. On these fields, the researchers still used herbicides and pesticides,
As for insect problems, low pesticide use along with habitat provided by cover crops, allowed pest-eating bugs and birds to flourish.
After eight years, Liebman and Davis used eight times less herbicide in the three-and four-year rotations than in the conventional plot,
¢Communal table areas,¢Benching areas,¢Hive configurations for the duration of a project,¢Individual workstations for focused tasks,
'hack'has been given a more positive connotation by Gensler: to change or improve an office building. In Gensler concept, a hackable building is oean existing structure that has been adapted beyond recognition quickly incorporating a diverse mix of multiple uses within a one.
Hacks range from tenant-driven changes to investments made by owners to reposition their asset.
Large-scale hacks can create spaces beyond standard amenities like cafes and fitness centers to oeattractors-or unique building amenities-like fabrication labs,
and the public. oethe building owner can perform hacks as incentives for existing tenants to remain,
Building hacks vary from low-cost additions and renovations to larger, strategic investments in the existing structure. oethe rapid influence of technology on how everyday work tasks are completed has decentralized many of the office-centric activities that governed North american office building design,
b (HIVE. The b (HIVE) represents oea building that becomes a part of an agile, adaptable business machine, somewhere between a hands-on community and the raw edge of technology.
Rounding out the (b) HIVE concept is the retail/third space on the ground floor, with a diverse mix of uses such as restaurants, studios, galleries, gyms, theatres, supermarkets, places of worship, medical facilities and community spaces,
Grazing ruminant animals, like cattle and sheep, also contribute significantly to climate change. Commentsview/Create comment on this paragraphhere, too,
engineered crops, pest control, fertilizers, etc. â environmental protection and remediation: restoration, monitoring, detection, etc. â consumer products:
livestock which produce medications or biological substances such as spider-silk; and an optimal source of biofuel.
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