the conversation
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Livestock Facial Recognition Could Help Prevent Farm Crime
Last week, it was reported that 700 sheep with an estimated value of $140,000, including nearly 200 valuable merino ewes, were stolen from a Victorian property in a highly sophisticated rural crime operation. Such large-scale rural theft is increasingly common. Rural crime is not isolated to certain states. Rather, stock theft is an Australian problem.…
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If You’re Going to Use ChatGPT, You May As Well Do It Properly
Generative AI is having a moment.
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The Threat of Killer Fungi Infections Is Growing, Researchers Find
Fungal infections have received a frenzy of attention thanks to the popularity of HBO’s The Last of Us. The show depicts a fungal pandemic caused by the real-life zombie-ant fungus, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. It imagines the outcome of society’s collapse and a brutal approach to maintaining public health. But in (real-life) laboratories, hospitals and public health…
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Forget Spy Balloons, the World of Surveillance Has Tried Everything From Schoolchildren to Trained Cats
The Chinese “spy balloon” shot down over the United States has brought the seemingly strange methods of surveillance and espionage into news headlines. Balloons have long been used for espionage – and not just for surveillance, as appears to be the case with this one. In the 1950s, Soviet soldiers in East Germany often saw…