Harvesting Washington state's vast fruit orchards each year requires thousands of farmworkers, and many of them work illegally in the United States. That system eventually could change dramatically as at least two companies are rushing to get robotic fruit-picking machines to market. The robotic pickers don't get tired and can work 24 hours a day. "Human pickers are getting scarce," said Gad Kober, a co-founder of Israel-based FFRobotics. "Young people do not want to work in farms, and elderly pickers are slowly retiring."

A crash test dummy gets hit in its "head" by a drone. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) wants to know, so they conducted a study to understand and mitigate the risks of drones flying over people, and what happens if a drone loses connection to its pilot or just crashes to the ground. It turns out that small drones are safer near people than was thought. "We were able to identify blunt force trauma, penetration injuries and lacerations as the most significant threats to people on the ground," said David Arterburn, an engineer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and lead investigator for the study, which was conducted by several universities and released Friday afternoon in Washington, D.C. As part of the test, the researchers dropped a typical drone (a Phantom 3, weighing 2.7 pounds) on a crash test dummy at a typical speed of about 34 mph.

'Our work toward the designing of the multi-functional material may provide another pathway to directly control the material property and deformation without electronic devices.' Because the material was developed in collaboration with the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the details of how it's made are not publicly available, said Dr Dr Martín-Martínez. Dr Martín Martínez, who specialized in the design and modelling of materials, believes that most of the problems being addressed with technology'have already been solved by nature, almost always in a much better way than we humans can develop, so for us it is a great source of inspiration,' he said. Nereis virens is a a sandworm that burrows in wet sand and mud. Sandworms make up a large part of the live sea-bait industry, and some sandworms are commercially grown to fulfill the industry's needs. They eat seaweed and microorganisms, and have distinctive traits including long bodies, many parapopdia (fleshy protrusions along the body) and blue heads with two large pincer teeth. The worm's jaw has a texture similar to gelatin - but if its environment changes, it can become hard. Its jaw is composed of a protein that contains large amounts of histidine, an amino acid that interacts with the ions of the environment and makes it more or less flexible depending on the environment in which it finds itself.

A key leader of the terror group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Yemen on Sunday, the Pentagon said. Abu Ahmed Al Awlaqi had led operations for the group in the Shabwa province. He also planned external attacks and coordinated the group's movement of weapons and explosives, authorities said. The death of the leader, according to Navy Captain Jeff Davis, was the result of a monthslong campaign designed to kill leaders of the group and other Yemeni operatives. Seven other members of the group were also killed in Sunday's strike, Davis said.

Cutting-edge, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and big data are among the fastest growing areas for investment according to analysis of venture capital flows into London's tech sector carried out by the founders of London Tech Week. The findings reveal that London's AI and machine learning companies have become particularly attractive for investors, with 20 times more investment in 2016 (£85.75 million) than the amount raised in 2011 (£3 million). Deputy Mayor for Business, Rajesh Agrawal said: "London is the technology capital of Europe. With a rich melting pot of creative talent, London is leading the way in the development of emerging technologies such as mobile payments, big data and artificial intelligence. Our world-class tech sector is creating jobs and growth across the city, with Londoners working alongside the best and brightest from across Europe and all over the world."

Harvesting Washington state's vast fruit orchards each year requires thousands of farm-workers, and many of them work illegally in the US. Two of the biggest orchards could soon replace the majority of these workers with robots that don't get tired and can work 24 hours a day. But experts have expressed their concerns over the robotic fruit pickers, claiming they will displace valuable members of the Washington community. Harvesting Washington state's vast fruit orchards each year requires thousands of farm-workers, and many of them work illegally in the US FFRobotics is developing a machine that has three-fingered grips to grab fruit and twist or clip it from a branch. The machine would have between four and 12 robotic arms, and can pick up to 10,000 apples an hour, Mr Kober said. One machine would be able to harvest a variety of crops, taking 85 to 90 percent of the crop off the trees, Mr Kober said.

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has sent back stunning images from its descent down a mysterious gap between Saturn and its rings. The images provide'our closest look ever at Saturn's atmosphere and giant hurricane,' Nasa said. The spacecraft executed the daredevil plunge yesterday in the build up to its final'death dive' in September. Communications with the spacecraft went dark during the dive, but Nasa announced today that it has picked up radio signals from Cassini. Nasa's 70m-wide Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna at Goldstone, California, managed to re-establish communications just after 08:00 BST (03:00 EST) today, and stunning images are already flooding in. Communications with the spacecraft went dark during the dive, but Nasa has today announced that it has picked up radio signals from Cassini.

Anthony Levandowski, who is at the centre of Alphabet's trade secrets lawsuit against Uber, stepped down from his post overseeing self-driving car technology. Uber said he'll take a lesser role on the team and won't be involved in decisions relating to lidar technology, which is the subject of the suit. Mr Levandowski explained the changes in a staff email obtained by Bloomberg. He said he decided, along with Uber Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick, that he should recuse himself from working on lidar, the laser technology used to help self-driving cars see the road. "I currently don't provide input on detailed LiDAR design choices. But making this organisational change means I will have absolutely no oversight over or input into our LiDAR work," Mr Levandowski wrote in the email.

American consumers believe that artificial intelligence (AI) will provide solutions to complex societal problems such as climate change, according to a new survey. Sixty-three percent of U.S. consumers believe AI will help solve complex problems, and 59 percent say it will contribute to a more fulfilling life, according to a PwC survey released Tuesday. Majorities of consumers believe AI will help tackle major issues like climate change, global health, economic growth and cancer. Nearly seven in 10 see it producing solutions for cybersecurity and privacy, and six in 10 say the same for personal financial security and fraud. Thirty-one percent also believe AI will help with gender equality issues.

In just half a day, a new type of robot built an igloo-shaped building half the diameter of the U.S. Capitol dome--all by itself. In the future, such autonomous machines could assemble entire towns, create wacky Dr. Seuss–like structures, and even prepare the moon for its first human colony. "It's an impressive project," says Matthias Kohler, an architect who studies autonomous construction at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, but was not involved in the work. People have experimented with many approaches to autonomous construction, and the scientists--a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) materials science and design focused Mediated Matter lab in Cambridge--weighed them all before designing their robot. Should their robot manufacture prefabricated parts in a distant factory?