By Luke Dormehl

The world of farming is changing rapidly. Whether it’s CRISPR editing for improving crop yields, smart scarecrows, or robot weeding machines, this sector continues to transform at a breakneck speed.

But rather than simply being capable of driving from point A to point B, the Monarch Tractor promises to carry out any function a farmer might use a tractor for, interfacing with other tractor attachments, along with carrying out assessments on crop health and more. Depending on the mode, they can work autonomously, controlled in a fleet by farmers on the ground, or tailing other drivers in a shadow mode. It’s an impressive piece of tech.

“The Monarch Tractor is fully autonomous, but it also works with existing tractor drivers, as well as interfacing with existing implements,” Praveen Penmesta, founder and CEO of Monarch, told Digital Trends. “We didn’t want to change the appearance [too much from the traditional vehicle so] that the farming community didn’t recognize it as a tractor. However, we wanted to make the Monarch Tractor adaptive so that it can grow with the farmer. We wanted to ensure our compact tractor could implement any attachment and have it work fully electrically like the tractor, and maintain balance and productivity.”

by Oregon Health & Science University

A decade after the birth of the first primates born with the aid of a gene therapy technique designed to prevent inherited mitochondrial disease, a careful study of the monkeys and their offspring reveals no adverse health effects.

Led by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University, the study published Dec. 8 in the journal Human Reproduction.

The new study generally bolsters the scientific basis for mitochondrial replacement therapy in human clinical trials, with an important caveat: Researchers found varying levels of carryover maternal mitochondrial DNA that had preferentially replicated and accumulated within some internal organs, although not enough to cause health effects.

By Jonathan Chadwick

• Polish project is creating smart road signs for adaptive control of vehicle traffic
• The signs combine video cameras, weather sensors and acoustic vector sensors
• And they feature built-in Doppler radar – a technique based on the Doppler effect

Researchers are building ‘intelligent’ motorway signs to track traffic volume and alert drivers in real time to potential dangers as part of a national project called INZNAK. 

AVS reads reflected sound waves and calculates traffic on a particular stretch of motorway, which can then be relayed to drivers to warn of congestion.