Swiss fondue robot out to cause a stir in Paris


'Bouebot' has taken nearly two years to develop and is still not ready for the shops 

(AFP/Jean-Guy Python)

Robin MILLARD
Thu, February 24, 2022

Switzerland's national dish is fondue, a simmering pot of heartwarming melted cheese -- that can now be prepared, stirred up and served by a robot, thanks to some hi-tech wizardry.

A Swiss team has been beavering away on Bouebot, the robotic creation putting a futuristic twist on an Alpine tradition.

Outside in the Rhone glacial valley bisecting Switzerland's southern Wallis region, crisp mountain air blows down from the glistening snowy peaks.

But inside Workshop 4.0's headquarters in Sierre, below the Crans-Montana ski resort, the air is hot from Bouebot's whirring servers and thick with the smell of melted cheese.

The robot is set to make its grand debut at the Paris International Agricultural Show, one of the world's major food production trade fairs, which runs from February 26 to March 6.

Bouebot is for demonstration purposes only and is far from appearing in kitchenware stores.

The entire project cost 250,000 to 300,000 Swiss francs ($270,000 to $325,000, 235,000 to 285,000 euros), with the robot arm alone costing 80,000 francs.

- 'Cheese passion' -

Workshop 4.0 co-director Nicolas Fontaine, 30, who wears a black baseball cap reading "cheese passion", said Bouebot had been nearly two years in the making.

"We wanted to do a... project that combined innovation with Swiss tradition, and fondue was the perfect choice," Fontaine told AFP.

"For the Swiss, fondue is emblematic. It's something very emotional too because it's part of our identity, our know-how.

"Fondue is something convivial... it's a nice opportunity to draw people in to talk about robotics and how it can be used."

Whether at home, in a restaurant or in an Alpine cabin, sharing a fondue remains the heart of Swiss social life.

Bouebot is named after the bouebos: teenage boys who spent the summer up in the mountain chalets, helping herdsmen while they took care of making cheese.

- Grate, stir, eat, repeat -

Pivoting on six different axes, Bouebot swings into action.

It glugs the right amount of white wine into the "caquelon" pot, then places it under the cheese grater.

The classic fondue mix is called a half-and-half -- an even amount of Vacherin Fribourgeois and Gruyere cheese.

The project's technical manager Ludovic Aymon, using his control pad, manoeuvres the robot arm down towards each cheese triangle, which is lifted up by creating a vacuum on the top.

After shearing off the rind on a circular blade, it starts swiping the underside down the grater.

Back on the heater, Bouebot does some vigorous figure-of-eight stirring as the cheese melts, then wipes off the spoon and sprinkles in some pepper.

It then picks up a metal spike, pierces a piece of bread, swipes it around the caquelon before placing it in a holder for fondue-lovers to try before the gooey cheese drips down.

Aymon said the biggest challenge was to get a precision mechanical robot to cope with imprecise organic material.

The cheese wedges are not perfectly flat, nor the same height, while Vacherin is much softer than Gruyere.

However, there is no chance of the traditional duo being changed for more robot-friendly cheeses -- not if the creators wants to stay alive, jokes Aymon.

The robot pivots on six different axes (AFP/Jean-Guy Python)

- Rise of the robots -

When seeing Bouebot at work, some onlookers are thrilled by the future possibilities for such technology, while others worry about machines encroaching into the human sphere.

"The effect I find the most interesting is fear... that fear of being replaced by something more powerful," Aymon told AFP.

"Robotics should not be to the detriment of human beings. It should help humans.

"It could help someone cook in the future. It shows that it could be done, for people who can't do it themselves."

With each run-through, Aymon spots tiny modifications to make, requiring yet more slabs from the cheese-stuffed fridge.

"I can't just work with a 3D simulation, like I could with lots of industrial processes. I have to do real tests," the 35-year-old said.

And with every fondue made, the end result must be eaten quickly.

"I think I'll never be sick of fondue, but there are times when I just can't stand the smell of cheese in here any longer," Aymon said.

rjm/jj

UPDATED

Brazil storm death toll passes 200 – Police


Thursday, February 24th, 2022 
by AFP

RIO DE JANEIRO – The death toll from flash floods and landslides caused by torrential rain in the Brazilian city of Petropolis has surpassed 200, authorities said Wednesday, as they continue to recover bodies more than a week after the storm.

Around 51 people are still missing, but that number is expected to go down as bodies are identified and families are reunited, police said.

Among the 204 bodies recovered, 188 had been identified as of Wednesday, Rio de Janeiro police said.

Some 800 people were being housed in emergency shelters after the deluge left their homes damaged or destroyed.

The February 15 downpour turned streets in the picturesque tourist town north of Rio de Janeiro into violent rivers, the water taking cars, trees and soil along with it.

Officials are still waging a massive clean-up operation to clear the mud, rubble and stranded vehicles strewn around Petropolis, a city of 300,000 people that was the 19th-century summer capital of the Brazilian empire.

The storm, which dropped more than a month’s worth of rain in a few hours, is now the deadliest in the city’s history.

In the past three months, approximately 250 people have died in severe storms in Brazil.

Death toll mounts from flash floods, landslides in Brazil’s Petropolis

Wed, 23 February 2022, 


The death toll from flash floods and landslides that hit the Brazilian city of Petropolis has risen to 186, authorities said Tuesday, one week after torrential rains lashed the tourist town.

Since the storm, rescue workers have searched for victims, digging through the mud and wreckage left by devastating landslides that mainly hit poor hillside communities.

The number of people missing currently stands at 69, a figure that has been falling as victims' bodies are identified and as families separated in the initial chaos manage to reunite.


Police said 33 children were among those killed in the February 15 deluge, which dumped a month's worth of rain on the southeastern city in several hours.

More than 850 people who lost their homes or had to evacuate are still being housed in emergency shelters.

Officials are waging a massive clean-up operation to clear the mud, rubble and stranded vehicles strewn around Petropolis, a picturesque city of 300,000 people that was the 19th-century summer capital of the Brazilian empire.

In the past three months, at least 236 people have died in severe storms in Brazil.

Experts say the violent rains are being made worse by climate change.

(AFP)

UPDATE

Cargo ship with luxury cars still burning; salvage crews set to arrive

The Felicity Ace (pictured), a cargo ship carrying thousands of luxury vehicles bound for Rhode Island, continued to burn off the coast of Portugal Tuesday. 

Photo courtesy Portuguese Navy


Feb. 22 (UPI) -- A large cargo ship that initially caught fire last week is continuing to burn while floating off the coast of Portugal, the company that operates it said Tuesday.

Two large tug boats are now on scene and are spraying the 656-foot-long vessel with water to achieve hull and boundary cooling, according to owner MOL Ship Management Singapore.

The two tugs arrived from Gibraltar and further salvage and fire crews are expected to arrive Wednesday and Saturday.

The two tugs will also assist to control the position of the car carrier prior to inspection by the initial salvage team already on site.

Once conditions are safe, salvage teams plan to board the vessel for an initial assessment of future salvage plans.

The Felicity Ace, a roll-on/roll-off car carrying ship built in 2005, was transporting cargo including Porsche and Volkswagen vehicles from Germany to Rhode Island when it caught fire last Wednesday.

Salvaging the massive ship will not be cheap. The operation could cost as much as $150 million, according to a new report issued by the Anderson Economic Group. The firm's revised estimate of the value of the ship's lost cargo is pegged at $334.6 million.

The economic impact will also be felt in New England, where an already-strained supply chain for autos will now get worse for some car dealers.

"To lose all those cars is devastating to the industry," Subaru of New England chief executive Ernie Boch Jr. told WCVB-TV. "[The vehicles] were all sold, by the way, because right now, cars are so in-demand that when they've manufactured and they come off the line, they're sold."

The vessel is not currently leaking oil, according to the latest updates.

All 22 crew members on board escaped after the fire broke out and were evacuated from the ship by the Portuguese Navy.

The Navy said the fire broke out in the cargo hold while the ship was sailing 90 nautical miles southwest of Portugal's Azores island chain but quickly spread.

Florida lawmaker withdraws measure requiring schools to 'out' gay students


Attendees celebrate the Sunday Pride Parade & Festival in Miami Beach, Florida, on September 19, 2021. 

File Photo by Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA-EFE

Feb. 22 (UPI) -- A Florida lawmaker who authored a controversial measure requiring school officials to report a child's sexual orientation to parents withdrew it Tuesday as debate was about to begin.

State Rep. Joe Harding, a Republican from Williston, Fla., withdrew his amendment less than an hour before the House of Representatives was set to consider the underlying Parental Rights in Education Act -- dubbed by critics as the "Don't Say Gay Bill."

Its provisions are written to regulate in-school discussions of gender identity and provide parents with the power to sue educators deemed to be in violation.

The measure has been widely denounced by critics, including President Joe Biden, as "hateful," while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has voiced his support for the measure, saying it is "entirely inappropriate" for teachers to be having conversations with students about gender identity.

Under Harding's amendment, which was introduced Friday, school principals would have been forced to "out" their students to parents within six weeks of the student confiding to them that they are anything other than straight.

An earlier version of the bill left an exemption in cases where there was a suspicion of the information leading to abuse, neglect or abandonment, but that exception was removed under the amendment, WFLA-TV reported.

Democratic lawmakers denounced the amendment at a news conference at the State Capitol in Tallahassee prior to Tuesday's session.

"This is the forced outing of an LGBTQ child to an unsupportive parent who is not ready," Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith told reporters.

Harding issued a statement to WESH-TV saying he withdrew the measure because the "exaggeration and misrepresentation in reporting about the amendment was a distraction."

"Nothing in the amendment was about outing a student," he said. "Rather than battle misinformation related to the amendment, I decided to focus on the primary bill that empowers parents to be engaged in their children's lives."

Experts: Ukraine crisis challenges International Space Station cooperation

Experts say that Russian aggression against Ukraine could strain the relationship between the United States, Russia and other international partners in the International Space Station, pictured in 2018. Photo courtesy of NASA

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 23 (UPI) -- The crisis over Russia's Ukrainian aggression presents NASA and other space agencies with the most serious diplomatic strain in the 22-year history of the International Space Station partnership, experts said.

Russia is a major partner with the United States, Europe, Japan and Canada in the space station's maintenance and operation.

Russia provides critical cargo and crew transport, along with engines that fire periodically to keep the station aloft. Cosmonauts and astronauts often work side-by-side in the orbiting laboratory.

NASA safety advisers are "watching closely" as the crisis deepens, Patricia Sanders, chairwoman of the space agency's independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, told UPI in an email.

"We already have concerns for safety of ISS and for U.S./NASA personnel in Russia with the space program," Sanders said.

The partnership is unlikely to dissolve immediately, but NASA may be prompted to accelerate plans to build commercial space stations if the Ukraine crisis deepens, Jeff Manber, a president with Denver-based Voyager Space, told UPI.

Manber formerly worked in Russia for a key spacecraft company there, RKK Energia.

"Clearly, the charmed life of the ISS is facing its biggest challenge yet," Manber said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement Monday that he would send troops into Eastern Ukrainian separatist regions.

"There is a very high probability that there will be fallout for the ISS partners on the International Space Station, but it won't be today," Manber said. "My feeling is the critical juncture will be 2024, in terms of whether Russia remains a partner and whether we wish them to remain a partner."

NASA recently decided to extend the lifespan of the 22-year-old ISS to 2030 from 2028, partly to allow more time for private companies to develop replacements for the space station.

The facility remains in good condition, but NASA will retire it due to heightened risk as it ages.

The conduct and tone struck by Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, and its director general, Dmitry Rogozin, will be key to the survival of the partnership, Manber said.

"If Rogozin behaves as a space agency head, then the partnership will weather this crisis. If he behaves as a proud and loyal supporter of incursion into Ukraine, it ... could imperil the partnership," he said.

Among other things, Putin said Monday that "Ukraine never had a tradition of genuine statehood," and described threats to Russia that will prompt "retaliatory measures."

After Putin's speech, Rogozin posted on Twitter, "Glory to Russia!" according to a translation.

Manber said that statement alerted him to the potential for greater problems down the road for the space station partnership.

"The greatest supporter for working with Russia has always been the Europeans. They're the ones who asked America to cooperate with Russia more. And yet here, this Ukraine situation is a gut punch to the Europeans," Manber said.

The ISS partnership with Russia previously weathered Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, formerly part of Ukraine in 2014, Todd Harrison, a director with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview.

"In the past, our cooperation on space programs with Russia has not been affected by our geopolitics on the ground," Harrison said. "But things change and, you know, it could be different this time around, although I don't think it will be."

Russia and the United States have invested billions in the space station, and neither nation can operate it easily without the other, he said. The facility is also a major point of pride for the Russian space program, he said.

"Plus, the loss of the ISS would affect a lot of others besides just the United States. It affects all of our other partners," Harrison said.

The United States has one advantage it didn't have in 2014, however: SpaceX Dragon capsules carrying astronauts, four at a time, to the station. But Harrison said NASA would be hard-pressed to adapt a U.S. craft to replace Russian vehicles that help to keep the ISS in orbit.

"I don't think that this could lead us to abandon the station and move to commercial substantially sooner than already planned," Harrison said.

Gov't calls for new study of controversial mining road project in Alaska

A road is seen near Coldfoot, Alaska. The move by the Interior Department calls for a new study of a proposal to build 200 miles of road through one of the nation's largest roadless areas in Alaska. 

File Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE

Feb. 23 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden's administration says that it wants to do another study for plans to build an Alaska mining road that would cut a path through indigenous territory and one of the United States' largest roadless areas -- suspending a Trump-era proposal.

The Ambler Road would create more than 200 miles of road, but the plan has been controversial among Alaska politicians and environmentalists. It would cross traditional homelands of Alaska Native communities including the Koyukon, Tanana Athabascans and Inupiat peoples.

The road, approved in mid-2020, would run from the Dalton Highway near Fairbanks to the Ambler Mining District -- which has deposits of gold, copper and other valuable metals.

The Interior Department said on Tuesday that it will suspend the right of way for the road until the new assessment is done, contending that the prior study under former President Donald Trump had serious issues.

The move brought condemnation from Republican Alaskans in Congress, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young.

"America's lack of mineral security should be one of the Biden administration's highest priorities, but its incoherent policies are making the problem worse," Murkowski said in a statement.

"This decision will harm Alaska, including the Alaska Natives who support and will benefit from this project. Nor could it come at a worse time: How can the Biden administration possibly watch Russia leverage Europe on natural gas, and then decide to put the United States in the exact same position on minerals?"

The Tanana Chiefs Conference supported the decision and called on Alaska to drop the Ambler Road proposal altogether.

"The 200-plus mile Ambler road represents a fundamental threat to our people, our subsistence way of life and our cultural resources," Brian Ridley, president of the conference, said in a statement.

"We appreciate that the federal government recognized the flaws in the previous administration's decisions to permit the road. We believe any objective review of the full impacts of this project, including the mining that it would facilitate, would demonstrate that constructing this road through the heart of our traditional lands would be a terrible idea."

The environmental group Trustees for Alaska says that the department's move doesn't go far enough.

"We appreciate that Interior acknowledged the legal problems with the prior administration's analysis of impacts to subsistence and cultural resources, but it is hugely troubling that it ignored a number of fundamental legal violations," Suzanne Bostrom, senior staff attorney with Trustees for Alaska, said in a statement. "This project never should have been authorized in the first place."

Biden met with several government and industry officials on Tuesday and announced investments to increase U.S. production of key minerals, which he said will reduce reliance on foreign supply chains.

ECOCIDE
Tesla to pay $275,000 fine for violating EPA regulations

By UPI Staff

People wearing masks walk in front of the Tesla store. 

File Photo Alex Plavevski/EPA-EFE

Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Tesla will pay a penalty of $275,000 after the EPA found the company violated the Clean Air Act at its assembly plant in Fremont, Calif.

The settlement agreement was announced on Tuesday and is just a drop in Tesla's reported net income of $2.3 billion in the final quarter of 2021.

According to the EPA, Tesla violated the National Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Surface Coating of Automobiles between 2016 and 2019 at its paint shop in Fremont.

Multiple fires were reported in the same shop during those years. The shop has also been scrutinized for allegations of rampant sexual and racial discrimination.

EPA said that Tesla failed to develop or implement a work practice to minimize hazardous air-pollutants emissions from materials used in its vehicle-coating operations.

Tesla failed to measure emissions from its coating operations or keep legally required records associated with hazardous air-pollutants emission rates.

In 2019, Tesla paid a $31,000 penalty for failing to comply with air emissions standards.

Tesla hails itself as a sustainable company.

Analysis: Facebook failing to counter climate change misinformation

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen testifying remotely during a Senate hearing looking into how Facebook moderated content during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, November 17, 2020. A new analysis Wednesday said Facebook is failing to prevent climate change misinformation. 

File Pool Photo by Hannah McKay/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 23 (UPI) -- The Center For Countering Digital Hate said Wednesday that Facebook is falling short of its promises to tackle climate misinformation.

According to a new analysis by CCDH, Facebook fails to label half of posts promoting articles from the world's leading publishers of climate change denial.

"By failing to do even the bare minimum to address the spread of climate change denial information, Meta is exacerbating the climate crisis," CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said in a statement.

Ahmed said climate change denial is designed to "fracture our resolve and impede meaningful action to mitigate climate change."

He said climate change misinformation flows unabated on Facebook and Instagram platforms owned by Meta.

CCDH said its analysis used the social analytics tool News Whip to assess 184 climate change denial articles published by the top 10 publishers of climate misinformation.

These articles have accumulated more than 1 million likes, comments or shares on Facebook, according to CCDH.

Meta's own CrowdTangle analytics tool was then used to identify the top public Facebook post for each article in the sample to see whether the articles were labeled as misinformation.

That analysis found 50.5% of the most popular climate change misinformation posts carried no warning labels.

CCDH said examples of climate change denial articles that carried no warning labels on Facebook include an article from Breitbart claiming global warming is not real and is a hoax and a Washington Times article claiming COVID-19 and climate change are being used to steal liberties.

Rashida Tlaib to give progressive response to State of the Union


Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., waits for testimony from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg during a committee meeting on Capitol Hill on October 23, 2019. She will give the progressive response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech on Tuesday. 

File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Rep. Rashida Tlaib will deliver a response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on Tuesday from the view of progressives, the Working Families Party said Wednesday.

Tlaib, D-Mich., is one of the most liberal members of Congress and a member of the so-called coalition "The Squad," originally made up of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.

Tlaib will likely take on moderate Democrats for stalling some of Biden's most progressive items.

"No one fought harder for Build Back Better and a pro-democracy agenda than progressives," Tlaib told Politico. "The work is unfinished and we're not giving up on what our communities deserve. We need to get as much done for the people as we can this year, and elect a majority that can deliver for working families in 2023."

In a Watch Party invitation, the Working Families Party said they will outline what they hope to hear in Biden's State of the Union before the president's address and then live stream Tlaib's response.

The announcement of Tlaib's address comes a day after Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said that Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds will give the Republican response to Biden's speech.

Christie's prepares for out-of-this-world meteorite auction


Large Specimen Of Mars is on display at a press preview for Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and Other Rare Meteorites at Christie's on February 17, in New York City. 

Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Christie's will conduct an out-of-this-world auction in New York as it holds its annual sale of rare and unusual meteorites.

There are 66 available lots in the sale, called "Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and other Rare Meteorites." One item includes a doghouse from Costa Rica where a meteorite crashed through its tin roof in 2019.

While the German shepherd survived unharmed, the doghouse was left with a seven-inch hole in the roof. It is expected to sell for nearly $300,000.

A portion of a meteorite that struck Britain in 2021 will be up for auction. The Winchcombe meteorite shower on Feb. 28, 2021, was caught on video as it created a bright streak across the sky as it crashed into Earth.

"There were over 1,000 eyewitness accounts from across the entire U.K., as well as Ireland and northern Europe, with reports of a sonic boom in the local area," a report from Christie's said.

"The following morning, the Wilcock family discovered a pile of dark stones and powder on their driveway in the town of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. Material from the impact site was collected into plastic bags that morning."

Christie's has been holding its meteorite event every year since 2014 with space rocks found around the world. This year's collection came from the United States, the Sahara desert, China, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Mali, France, Sweden, Venezuela and Mexico.

Some of the meteorites came from existing private collections while others have been recovered by professional meteorite hunters.