Even cowboy jobs may not be safe from robots

An Australian professor is developing a robot to monitor the health of grazing livestock, a development that could bring big changes to a profession that's relied largely on a low-tech approach for decades but is facing a labor shortage. Salah Sukkarieh, a robotics professor at the University of Sydney, sees robots as necessary given how cattlemen are aging. The average age of a farmer in Australia is 52, according to the Australian Farm Institute. Sukkarieh is building a four-wheeled robot that will run on solar and electric power. It will roam pastures alongside livestock and monitor the animals using cameras, thermal sensors and infrared.