Rise up sunshine. I'm Koi Wire here with
your 10 minutes of news. Hope you are
having an awesome, fantastic, phenomenal
day. I have a question for you. What is
your favorite breed of dog? My family is
trying to convince me that we should get
one. And I'm thinking some big old dog,
but they keep showing me these pictures
of these teeny tiny Pomeranians, and I
do not know how I feel about that.
Anyways, I was just thinking about this
because our lead story today is about a
breed of robot dogs. Now, we've shown
you a lot of videos of robo dogs being
introduced at tech shows or being tested
in the lab, but today we're getting a
look at a new fleet being put into
action in the real world, working in
forests. This pack is heading out into
the wilderness using cameras and lasers
to map trees in ways humans maybe never
could. Here's how the Oxford Robotics
Institute is giving forest management a
whole new perspective.
They do look and feel very much like
robot dogs. When we go to the forest or
to the park sometimes just to test the
robots, um we do attract attention not
only of the dog owners but the dogs
themselves. So they they tend to come
close and then sniff around uh the
robot. Of course, our robots can't
understand this yet.
So my name is Nive Sholu and I'm a
senior researcher here at the Oxford
Robotics Institute.
So this is the antibiotic quadripet.
This is a robot platform that we've been
using in order to do the the forestry
mapping. There are about eight cameras
on the device which are used for for for
obstacle detection as well as other
cameras which are more high resolution
for for for understanding the uh the
trees and the environment around us.
Lasers, scanners as well as inertial
measurement units.
Once we have all this data as the robot
is moving, we can stitch together to
create a 3D map of the environment.
So the goal of the DigiF Forest project
was to build digital models of forests
using cameras and lasers on a variety of
different robot platforms. So with more
detailed reconstructions of the forest,
we're able to more quickly identify when
there is maybe disease or whether a tree
is damaged or could be helped or whether
it could be harvested uh for for its
wood.
Forest management has used measuring
tapes for over 100 years and this use of
quadriped robots will transform the way
it's carried out.
>> With this as the robot is walking, you
densely map the entire region. So you
get a per tree inventory. So we're able
to monitor it at a much higher
resolution than what we we were able to
do in the past.
>> So I think we now have a kind of a fully
functional system that's able to map a
hectare maybe in 20 minutes. So when you
have four points of contact, it's
naturally stable compared to a humanoid
kind of a robot which is two legs. So
just energy wise, it's much more uh
efficient to have a four-legged robot,
especially in uneven terrain.
>> The cost of these walking platforms is
falling dramatically. They're with
longer battery life with with different
battery technology. It's an exploratory
technology. It's not one you're likely
to come across when you go down to the
woods today, but uh you never know.
Pop quiz hot shot. A giant panda's diet
consists of almost exclusively hot tree
bark, berries, bamboo, or insects.
There is no bamboozling you if you said
bamboo. Pandas spend up to 16 hours a
day feasting on the woody grass. A
full-grown panda can eat up to a 100
pounds of bamboo per day. For the first
time in decades, there are no giant
pandas in Japan. The last pair were sent
back to their ancestral home in China.
The twin pandas were born in Tokyo, but
under Beijing's long-running panda
diplomacy program, they still belong to
China, and the agreement to send them
back reached its deadline. Crowds
gathered at the Tokyo Zoo to bid
farewell to a pair of four-year-old
pandas last week. CNN's Hanako
Montgomery reports.
For the first time in half a century,
Japan will be pandalless. As its last
two cubs, Ziao Xiao and Lelay, are
leaving for China.
>> I'm really sad. We always said there's a
panda here, so we'll get to see it
sometime. And then this happened. I wish
I'd come more often.
News of the twins departure has drawn
fans from across the country, some
waiting hours for a final glimpse.
Though they were born in Tokyo in 2021,
the Cubs were always meant to return
this year to their motherland, which
loans the Bears as goodwill ambassadors
and to strengthen trade ties.
But as tensions between Japan and China
deepen, prospects for another pandalone
seem increasingly far-fetched.
It feels like such a cute innocent
animal is being used as a trump card or
weapon.
Relations between the two countries are
at their lowest point in years after
Japan's Prime Minister Sana Takichi said
in Parliament that a Chinese invasion of
Taiwan could trigger a Japanese military
response. China, which claims Taiwan as
its own, considers the issue a red line
and has responded with a flurry of
economic pressure tactics like cutting
flights, warning citizens against
traveling to Japan, and suspending
seafood imports.
Now, the panda's departure, though
pre-planned, feels like yet another
blow.
>> Honestly, at the operational level, we
don't know if we'll get more pandas, but
we hope to continue working with China
on conservation and breeding research in
the future.
>> Japan first welcomed pandas in 1972 to
mark the normalization of ties with
China. What followed was decades of
panda fever with a zoo surrounding
neighborhood transformed by tourism and
panda themed merchandise.
Tens of millions of dollars are
generated each year from the panda
economy, according to one economist's
estimates. But with no new bare loan in
sight, Japan's 50-year chapter of panda
diplomacy comes to a close.
It's time for a Did you know? Even
though giant pandas eat a prolific
amount of bamboo, they can only digest
about 17% of it. That is because despite
evolving to be herbivores, they've
retained a short digestive tract
normally seen in carnivores. This
combined with a fiber-rich diet means
pandas are prodigious producers of
excrement. An adult panda can go number
two up to 100 times a day, producing
dozens of pounds of waste. Talk about
kungpoo panda. And that's not their only
bizarre bathroom habit. Get this. Pandas
are also known to urinate while doing a
handstand. Yes, this is true. Scientists
say the unusual act is actually a
technique to mark their territory. The
higher the mark, the bigger the panda.
Do not try this at home. Pause. Aibly
enlightening stuff. and teachers. I am
sorry for any pandemonium the potty talk
have caused.
Today's story getting a 10 out of 10. A
farm dog you have to see to believe and
you won't believe that the dog can't
see. Goose arrived on a Pendleton
County, Kentucky farm in 2013. And his
owner, Miss Lindy Huffman, says he chose
her. He was the very first puppy that
came and ran up to me and he snatched
the harness out of my hands and took off
with it. And I think in that moment I
knew that he was mine and I was his. So
he kind of chose me in that moment.
>> For more than a decade, Goose has done
it all. Bringing in cattle, helping
during planting season and keeping a
close eye on the greenhouse. That
dedication is now earning Goose national
attention as one of three finalists for
the People's Choice Pup Award.
>> He's been getting a lot of traction.
It's not going to his head too bad.
>> Now, listen to this. In 2021, Goose was
dealing with glaucoma, which began to
take his eyesight, forcing Lindy and her
husband to make a difficult decision to
remove his eyes.
>> We were worried, you know, is he still
going to love the same? Is he still
going to adventure the same? Is he still
going to, you know, farm the same?
>> We'll let Goose show you how it's done.
The farm dog phenom still knows his way
down the gravel path, knows the pasture,
and how to get to the red barn, ready
for another day of work. Goose is a
living testimony that losing something
doesn't mean losing your way. The
important thing is to do your best to
keep moving forward. All right,
superstars, a couple shout outs for you
before I send you on your way. First up,
Mr. Washington at Riverdale High School
in Riverdale, Georgia. Thank you for
continuing your family's legacy of
teaching and go Raiders. And this shout
out goes to Mr. Lidle at Meadow Park
Middle School in Beaverton, Oregon.
Thank you for the kind emails from your
students. Rise up. It is almost Friday,
everyone. So go out, spread some joy. Be
a spark of joy. Be a spark of kindness.
And I'll see you right back here
tomorrow. I'm Koi Wire and we are CNN
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