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Swiss startup turns urine into plant fertilizer

Popular Science

The space-inspired wastewater treatment uses the nutrients and loses the odor. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. When most people need to go number one, they find the nearest bathroom and don't give half a thought to what happens to their pee once it disappears down the toilet or urinal . It turns out that the nitrogen in human urine can be used in fertilizer. However, humanity's use of nitrogen is everything but efficient, according to a pair of siblings who founded the Swiss start-up company, VunaNexus.



Is microwave cooking nuking all the nutrients?

Popular Science

Is microwave cooking nuking all the nutrients? Micorwaves have been a kitchen staple since the late 1960s, but are they safe for our food? Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Originally used for radar and other technologies, the power of microwaves was first harnessed specifically for heating food in 1947 . By the late 1960s, commercial microwave ovens were small and inexpensive enough to become fixtures of the modern kitchen.


Zombie worms have gone missing

Popular Science

Biologists investigate the case of the lost'bone devourers' that feed on whale carcasses. Osedax is considered an ecosystem engineer. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. If you're leading a group of zombie apocalypse survivors, you don't want to lose sight of the horde of brain-hungry creatures trying to eat you. The same can be said if the zombie worm goes missing from the ocean floor.


Flavonoid Fusion: Creating a Knowledge Graph to Unveil the Interplay Between Food and Health

Dalal, Aryan Singh, Zhang, Yinglun, Doğan, Duru, İleri, Atalay Mert, McGinty, Hande Küçük

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

The focus on'food as medicine' is gaining traction in the field of health and several studies conducted in the past few years discussed this aspect of food in the literature. However, very little research has been done on representing the relationship between food and health in a standardized, machine - readable fo rmat using a semantic web that can help us leverage this knowledge effectively. To address this gap, this study aims to create a knowledge graph to link food and health through the knowledge graphs' ability to combine information from various platforms foc using on flavonoid contents of food found in the USDA's databases and cancer connections found in the literature. We looked closely at these relationships using KNARM methodology and represented them in machine - operable format. The proposed knowledge graph serves as an example for researchers, enabling them to explore the complex interplay between dietary choices and disease management. Future work for this study involves expanding the scope of the knowledge graph by capturing nuances, adding more related d ata, and performing inferences on the acquired knowledge to uncover hidden relationships.



Tiny prairie dogs' poop play a mighty role in grasslands

Popular Science

Environment Conservation Land Tiny prairie dogs' poop play a mighty role in grasslands Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Earth is made of cycles. If you think back to high school Earth science class, you might remember the water cycle, the rock cycle, and the oxygen cycle, to name just a few. These natural processes continuously recycle our planet's materials, maintaining the environment that hosts life as we know it. The nutrient cycle is another crucial example of our planet's constant churn.


Arbiters of Ambivalence: Challenges of Using LLMs in No-Consensus Tasks

Radharapu, Bhaktipriya, Revel, Manon, Ung, Megan, Ruder, Sebastian, Williams, Adina

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

The increasing use of LLMs as substitutes for humans in ``aligning'' LLMs has raised questions about their ability to replicate human judgments and preferences, especially in ambivalent scenarios where humans disagree. This study examines the biases and limitations of LLMs in three roles: answer generator, judge, and debater. These roles loosely correspond to previously described alignment frameworks: preference alignment (judge) and scalable oversight (debater), with the answer generator reflecting the typical setting with user interactions. We develop a ``no-consensus'' benchmark by curating examples that encompass a variety of a priori ambivalent scenarios, each presenting two possible stances. Our results show that while LLMs can provide nuanced assessments when generating open-ended answers, they tend to take a stance on no-consensus topics when employed as judges or debaters. These findings underscore the necessity for more sophisticated methods for aligning LLMs without human oversight, highlighting that LLMs cannot fully capture human disagreement even on topics where humans themselves are divided.


Informatics for Food Processing

Ispirova, Gordana, Sebek, Michael, Menichetti, Giulia

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

This chapter explores the evolution, classification, and health implications of food processing, while emphasizing the transformative role of machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and data science in advancing food informatics. It begins with a historical overview and a critical review of traditional classification frameworks such as NOVA, Nutri-Score, and SIGA, highlighting their strengths and limitations, particularly the subjectivity and reproducibility challenges that hinder epidemiological research and public policy. To address these issues, the chapter presents novel computational approaches, including FoodProX, a random forest model trained on nutrient composition data to infer processing levels and generate a continuous FPro score. It also explores how large language models like BERT and BioBERT can semantically embed food descriptions and ingredient lists for predictive tasks, even in the presence of missing data. A key contribution of the chapter is a novel case study using the Open Food Facts database, showcasing how multimodal AI models can integrate structured and unstructured data to classify foods at scale, offering a new paradigm for food processing assessment in public health and research.


Machine Learning Models for Soil Parameter Prediction Based on Satellite, Weather, Clay and Yield Data

Kammerlander, Calvin, Kolb, Viola, Luegmair, Marinus, Scheermann, Lou, Schmailzl, Maximilian, Seufert, Marco, Zhang, Jiayun, Dalic, Denis, Schön, Torsten

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Efficient nutrient management and precise fertilization are essential for advancing modern agriculture, particularly in regions striving to optimize crop yields sustainably. The AgroLens project endeavors to address this challenge by develop ing Machine Learning (ML)-based methodologies to predict soil nutrient levels without reliance on laboratory tests. By leveraging state of the art techniques, the project lays a foundation for acionable insights to improve agricultural productivity in resource-constrained areas, such as Africa. The approach begins with the development of a robust European model using the LUCAS Soil dataset and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to estimate key soil properties, including phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, and pH levels. This model is then enhanced by integrating supplementary features, such as weather data, harvest rates, and Clay AI-generated embeddings. This report details the methodological framework, data preprocessing strategies, and ML pipelines employed in this project. Advanced algorithms, including Random Forests, Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Fully Connected Neural Networks (FCNN), were implemented and finetuned for precise nutrient prediction. Results showcase robust model performance, with root mean square error values meeting stringent accuracy thresholds. By establishing a reproducible and scalable pipeline for soil nutrient prediction, this research paves the way for transformative agricultural applications, including precision fertilization and improved resource allocation in underresourced regions like Africa.