Good Morning! 🌞  

Did you know that unlike humans, whose central nervous system is largely confined within their brain (though a large amount is in our gut), octopuses have a decentralized nervous system? A significant portion of their neurons are located in their arms. Each arm of an octopus can independently taste, touch, and control basic motions without direct input from the brain. This means an octopus's arms can solve problems, like how to open a shellfish, while the main brain is busy doing something else. This unique adaptation is a fascinating example of the diversity of intelligence in the animal kingdom.

If you’re interested in learning more about these fascinating creatures, I highly recommend watching the Netflix movie “My Friend The Octopus”. It follows the fascinating journey of a man, who made friends with a wild octopus, while freediving.

Innovation

Weed-Killer Robots

Verdant Robotics, a leading ag-tech company, has developed cutting-edge artificially-intelligent fertilizer and weed killing robots that are transforming the way farmers manage their crops.

Verdant Robotics has created a multi-action, autonomous platform that is the only ag-robot in the U.S. market capable of simultaneously weeding, fertilizing, and treating plants for pests and diseases. Passing over a field the robots can specifically target individual weeds and crops at a rate of 20 per second, before blasting them with either de-weeder or fertilizer within a millimeter of accuracy.

The robots use sub-millimeter precision to identify and target individual plants, allowing for the use of 95% less chemicals than traditional spraying methods. This level of accuracy is made possible by a combination of advanced robotics, machine vision, and deep learning algorithms.

“Increasingly folks are turning towards things like cover-cropping again, and inter-cropping and other regenerative agriculture techniques that allow us to keep the soil healthy,” said Gabe Siblev, Founder and CEO of Verdant Robotics, in a mini-doc about their technology. “The challenges there have been that it’s difficult to do this at the same sort of scale that we can do monocropping, which is how we feed the world.”

The robots can treat an impressive 500,000 plants per hour, significantly increasing the speed and efficiency of farm operations. Furthermore, these advanced robots, such as the SprayBox, don't just treat a plant and move on. Instead, they meticulously construct a centimeter-by-centimeter map of the entire field, including the geolocation and identification of each plant. This extensive data collection is vital in implementing regenerative agriculture on a large scale, which would otherwise require a substantial workforce.

Because of the mapping and precise targeting, this could potentially enable the large scale growing multiple crops on the same field. Doing this at a monocropping scale would be huge for utilizing regenerative farming techniques. “Ironically, it’s kind of returning to how we farmed you know, 100 years ago. Unlocking knowledge that a lot of older growers have, and bringing it back through technology,” said Siblev.

As the demand for food increases and the need for sustainable farming practices becomes more pressing, the adoption of these advanced technologies will be essential in meeting the challenges of the future.

It is well worth watching the thing in action, it almost looks like a video game.

World News

1 Billion Out of Poverty

Global poverty has been a pressing issue for decades, affecting millions of people worldwide. However, recent data shows a decline in global poverty rates, indicating that efforts to combat this issue are making a positive impact.

According to the World Bank, global poverty has been declining steadily since the 1990s, with extreme poverty falling from 38% in 1990 to 8.8% in 2018. (It this case, extreme poverty is defined as less the $2.15 a day, though older statistic from the world bank use $1.90, it has been revised due to inflation) This decline can be attributed to several factors, including economic growth in developing countries, increased access to education, and targeted poverty reduction programs

These fantastic numbers mean that around 1 billion people have climbed out of poverty. Going from about 1.7 billion people to 670 million in just a few decades.

Here’s too a brighter future!

Culture

Leaning Tower

Officials have secured the area around one of Bologna's iconic 12th Century towers, the Garisenda, due to concerns that its leaning could lead to collapse. The city announced a 4.3 million euro ($4.7 million) project to reinforce the tower during January and February. While Italy's civil protection agency has issued a yellow alert, meaning caution is advised but there's no imminent danger, the Garisenda has leaned since its construction and sustained additional damage in the medieval era.

Mayor Matteo Lepore has requested UNESCO world heritage status for both the Garisenda and the taller Asinelli tower, which have inspired artists and served as a lookout point throughout history. Ongoing reinforcement work on both towers has been in progress since the 1990s, and the initial phase of the project will include creating a containment area to prevent damage to nearby structures or harm to passersby in case of a collapse.

I am glad they are taking steps to prevent a collapse. It would be a shame to loose either of those beautiful, ancient towers.

Environment

Ozone Layer to Recover Within Decades

Solar panels are pretty cool, but they can often be an eyesore. This is a particularly big concern in areas that have great architectural beauty like Vicenza, Italy, which is well know for it’s beautiful red terra-cotta roofs.

Dyaqua, a small company in Italy, has tackled this problem with their ingenious new solar panel design that looks just like terracotta. The tiles are a polymer designed that allow light to pass through to the photovoltaic cells hidden inside, while appearing opaque to the naked eye.

The tiles are easy to lay, and need no special training or tools. They are also vertically indistinguishable from their ceramic counterparts.

Dyaqua did not stop with terracotta. Dyaqua's Invisible Solar panels are designed to blend seamlessly with multiple architectural styles and materials, including wood, concrete, terracotta, and stone. These innovative technology allows for the installation of solar panels in places where traditional solar panels would not be permitted due to historical preservation regulations or aesthetic concerns.

While the efficiency of Dyaqua's solar panels is around 25% compared to traditional solar panels, it certainly has its place. With the ability to imitate wood, concrete, and stone as well gives it a huge versatility.

Mind Stretchers 

⁉️ 

You see a boat filled with people. It has not sunk, but when you look again you don’t see a single person on the boat. Why?

The answer to yesterday’s Mind Stretcher was: 9
Chris Hostetler is on a streak with getting in the correct answer first, with Debbie Ettinger coming in a close second.

Be the first to send us the correct answer for today’s mind stretcher for a shout-out with the answer tomorrow. Just send us the answer and your name to [email protected] or reply to this email.

If you have any uplifting stories and experience you might want to share, send those over to [email protected] for the chance to be featured.