Robot dog sniffs out fire ants without the painful sting
The robot dog identified ant hives with a 95 percent accuracy rate. Deposit Photos From an ecological standpoint, most ants are great—they aerate soil, clean up organic matter, and help to spread plant seeds. Fire ants, on the other hand… well, you probably already know. The incredibly painful, invasive pests can cause serious harm to their surroundings by disrupting food chains and causing general chaos. It only takes one accidental encounter with the little monsters to know that you never want a repeat experience, but a new AI-powered robotic system could help reduce the number of painful run-ins by locating hives for eradication—no awful ant bites needed. [Related: The terrifying way fire ants take advantage of hurricane floods.] According to a new preprint paper highlighted on Friday by New Scientist, researchers at China’s...