Ukraine ramps up mobilisation to replenish troop numbers more than 28 months since Russia's invasion. But Ukrainian men are becoming less eager to fight amid waning public enthusiasm for wartime service. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has lowered the draft age to 25 from 27 in April and signed off on an overhaul of the mobilisation process that entered force in May. A network of laboratories in hundreds of secret workshops across Ukraine is reportedly leveraging innovation to create a robot army that the country hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians. Defence startups across the country – about 250 according to industry estimates – are reportedly creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops, according to an Associated Press news investigation.

Enter increasingly affordable and sophisticated drones and miniaturized geophysical sensors. The Binghamton team's first focus: the Russian-made PFM-1 mine, a device just five inches across, made largely of plastic, and shaped like a butterfly. Designed to be dropped from the air in large numbers, they flutter gently to the ground like flocks of birds, and await the unwary. Designed mainly to maim, not kill, they are difficult to spot with a magnetometer, because they contain little metal. And because they resemble plastic toys, many children handle them, and get blown up.

Using drones and artificial intelligence to monitor large colonies of seabirds can be as effective as traditional on-the-ground methods, while reducing costs, labor and the risk of human error, a new study finds. Scientists at Duke University and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) used a deep-learning algorithm--a form of artificial intelligence--to analyze more than 10,000 drone images of mixed colonies of seabirds in the Falkland Islands off Argentina's coast. The Falklands, also known as the Malvinas, are home to the world's largest colonies of black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris) and second-largest colonies of southern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes c. chrysocome). Hundreds of thousands of birds breed on the islands in densely interspersed groups. The deep-learning algorithm correctly identified and counted the albatrosses with 97% accuracy and the penguins with 87%.

Scientists at Duke University and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) used a deep-learning algorithm--a form of artificial intelligence--to analyze more than 10,000 drone images of mixed colonies of seabirds in the Malvinas/Falkland Islands off Argentina's coast. The Malvinas/Falklands are home to the world's largest colonies of black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris) and second-largest colonies of southern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes c. chrysocome). Hundreds of thousands of birds breed on the islands in densely interspersed groups. The deep-learning algorithm correctly identified and counted the albatrosses with 97% accuracy and the penguins with 87%. All told, the automated counts were within 5% of human counts about 90% of the time.

DURHAM, N.C. - Using drones and artificial intelligence to monitor large colonies of seabirds can be as effective as traditional on-the-ground methods, while reducing costs, labor and the risk of human error, a new study finds. Scientists at Duke University and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) used a deep-learning algorithm--a form of artificial intelligence--to analyze more than 10,000 drone images of mixed colonies of seabirds in the Falkland Islands off Argentina's coast. The Falklands, also known as the Malvinas, are home to the world's largest colonies of black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris) and second-largest colonies of southern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes c. chrysocome). Hundreds of thousands of birds breed on the islands in densely interspersed groups. The deep-learning algorithm correctly identified and counted the albatrosses with 97% accuracy and the penguins with 87%.

This summer, the whole world watched in horror as thousands of fires, again this year, ravaged the Amazon rainforest. Yet the forests are specific ecosystems: they are carbon sinks, meaning they stock carbon dioxide outside of the atmosphere; their destruction is contributing to climate change. To fight this phenomenon and protect the environment, governments, associations, scientists and local communities are relying more and more on technological advances. More specifically, here's how satellite imagery, artificial intelligence, and drones are being deployed in environmental battles. Combined with other sources of information (data collected in the field, aerial photography, etc.), satellite imagery makes it possible to analyse the evolution of forests, to detect changes that have arisen in a particular area and over a given period of time, and, ultimately, to determine the rate of global deforestation.

On the photo: image processing based on samples taken by robotic platform in combination with artificial intelligence.

While most countries in the world are fighting exponential growth of coronavirus infections, China seems to have gotten the situation under control. That's been largely due to the Chinese government's ability to enforce preventive measures more successfully than Western democracies. Individualism, a patchwork approach and fear of stopping economic growth backfired in the U.S. and some European countries. An overlooked factor that helped flatten the curve in China: Technology. Social distancing, contactless transactions, cleaning and gathering diagnostic data have been made possible by automated technologies developed at Chinese companies.

The helmet sounds an alarm if anyone has a fever. If you think that something is missing, you're right. We haven't mentioned AI -- …

Outfield Technologies is a Cambridge-based agri-tech start-up company which uses drones and artificial intelligence, to help fruit growers maximise their harvest from orchard crops. Outfield Technologies' founders Jim McDougall and Oli Hilbourne have been working with Ph.D. student Tom Roddick from the Department's Machine Intelligence Laboratory to develop their technology capabilities to be able to count the blossoms and apples on a tree via drones surveying enormous apple orchards…