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ESA has an interesting story on how satellite imagery data is used in predicting desert locust plagues.
Satellites are helping to predict favourable conditions for desert locusts to swarm, which poses a threat to agricultural production and, subsequently, livelihoods and food security.
Desert locusts are a type of grasshopper found primarily in the Sahara, across the Arabian Peninsula and into India. The insect is usually harmless, but when they swarm they can migrate across long distances and cause widespread crop damage.
During the 2003–05 plague in West Africa, more than eight million people were affected. Up to 100% losses were reported on cereals, 90% on legumes and 85% on pasture. It took nearly $600 million and 13 million litres of pesticide to bring the plague under control.
[...] "I use the data products to understand the current situation, as well as the evolution of locust outbreaks," said Ahmed Salem Benahi, Chief Information Officer for Mauritania's National Centre for Locust Control.
"We now have the possibility to see the risk of a locust outbreak one to two months in advance, which helps us to better establish preventive control."
The dataset is a combination of measurements from ESA's SMOS and NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 15 2017, @05:15PM (1 child)
> It's not clear, if insects do feel pain, fear or are conscious in a relevant way
I default to assuming that all living being can feel pain in one form or another, and have consciousness.
Every time we claim that something is only for humans, some animal comes around to prove us wrong, or we actually pay attention and notice their behavior.
The word "relevant" you use is important. Can you define conscious in a general sense, or are you using "relevant" to no-true-scotsman it to human-like consciousness? Many insects exhibit pretty complex behaviors when put in unusual situations, which don't fit the random/repetitive/dumb patterns you'd expect from being a mindless gene expression.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Thursday June 15 2017, @06:36PM
Actually consciousness is as far as I know not really scientifically defined. Nor is "suffering". I could possibly implement an avoidance-algorithm for an mbot, to move and avoid bright areas, ane still wouldn't feel guilty to shine a flashlight at it. There is afaik no way to distinguish between a good similation of life and actual life. Evolution is not limited to living beings.
On the other hand we need to eat. So the best we can do (assuming we want to minimize suffering) is to use common judgement. By saving a cat we kill indirectly birds and mice. But we might save the beatles the mice would have eaten otherwise. There is no actual metric helping us to make the decisions.
By relevant consciousness I mean conscious enough to feel pain and have a concept of will to survive. But this is not measurable.