A rat called Magawa has recently received a reward in Cambodia for its ability to detect landmines. The rat received a gold medal. While rats are considered vermin, Magawa has redeemed the reputation of its species as the first rodent to receive such prestigious recognition. The rat has the ability to sniff out landmines. For every landmine it finds, a lot of lives are saved.
The gold medal is small, and it is appended on a small blue-collar. It was presented by the British veterinary charity called People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals.
The rat has an excellent sense of smell and memory. So far, it has discovered 39 landmines. It has also discovered 28 items called unexploded ordnance. The rat can search an area as big as a tennis court in as short as 30 minutes. If a human does this same job, for the human, it will take four days to explore the same area size with a metal detector.
The good thing about Magawa and other rats that received the same training is that they ignore the metal. Instead, they sniff for explosives. This information came from Christophe Cox, the CEO of APOPO. It is a non-profit organization that trained Magawa. Apart from training rats, the organization is also training other creatures to sniff for tuberculosis.
Drones Now Deliver on Some Campuses
UPS got approval to deliver using drones on campuses and hospitals. Although residential deliveries are not happening yet, it might just become a reality soon. UPS got approval from the US government to operate its drone airline. The particular business of these drones is to deliver parcels. Amazon and Alphabet are already doing this, and UPS is trying to catch up.
The Federal Aviation Administration is the one that granted rights to UPS for its Flight Forward company, a subsidiary. This grant or certificate now allows UPS to deliver via drones on campuses and in hospitals. UPS admitted, however, that residential deliveries are still farfetched.
The drones are operated by pilots. The machines will fly beyond the line of sight. Approval from the government was necessary to ensure that the drones do not interfere with commercial and private flights.
Google Classroom Gets an Update
The internet is not just for entertainment like playing at online casino Vulkan. Now, it is necessary to conduct classes. Google Classroom recently launched a series of updates. This includes giving better control to students and allowing teachers to have simplified workflows.
Google Classroom has launched six years ago. The goal at that time was to streamline the process of online education, making it easier for teachers and students to exchange files quickly. Google did not expect it to become the fundamental solution for online classes when the pandemic struck.
Because of the heavy usage from around the world, it is just right for Google to take a step forward to update the system. Now, Google Classroom can be integrated with Google Workplace. Teachers can now use their EdTech data and tools directly from inside the Google Classroom system.
Teachers can also create options for classes in advance. This feature is called the Student Information System or SIS. There is going to be roster sync, and people can now streamline the grade entry and also get data to understand their students’ activities.
Scientists Use Smartphone Gyroscopes to Sync Time
For our last news on innovation, researchers have created an algorithm that synchronizes time across multiple smartphones. They can be used for practical tasks that require accuracy in measurement. What this promise is that the devices can actually be turned into sensors.
In this effort, they are looking forward to using multiple devices that work in sync. For example, let us say that you want several phones to act as cameras. You can use the algorithm to sync the time for all these devices and then act in unison to start recording at the given time.
Other functions include multiple phones using the microphone to record sounds at the same time. This is pretty much useful if you are looking for noise cancellation. The algorithm for syncing time is just the start, the goal of which is to have many phones work together cohesively as a single unit.
