Overweight hedgehogs go on diet

Ten overweight hedgehogs have had to go on strict diets and exercise regimes after they ate so much on the streets of Israel that they struggled to curl up into a ball to fend off predators.

Animal lovers found them waddling around and brought them into the hospital Ramat Gan zoo. Staff there said the hedgehogs had probably been snacking on food left out for pets.

“A lot of people put cat food on the streets for the stray cats, which is very nice but ... the problem is that there’s other wildlife that eats it,” zookeeper Becka Rifkin told.

One adult male named Sherman was 1.6 kg (3.5 lb) when he arrived at the facility two months ago, almost double the average weight for a hedgehog his age. He has since lost 120 grams after staff monitored his diet and left him to run around an enclosure. They hope they will be able to release him by the summer.

Robot dogs open doors

The Spot Mini quadruped robot, developed by Boston Dynamics, moves just like a dog. And a new redesigned version has the added feature of an arm that can extend out if its head.

This robot is so dexterous that it can open doors on its own. It put this arm to good use when it expertly and smoothly opened the door and even held it open for its robot friend to pass through.

Eliott Higgins, visiting research associate with Kings College London shared the video of this act on Twitter with the caption: “The latest update from our future robot overlords.”

The rate of robotics development and artificial intelligence (AI) has been so brisk that experts in the field have warned that robots may soon replace humans as the most powerful and dominant ‘life force’ on earth.

Whether this manifests or not, robotics and AI are fast becoming an ever more integral part of our human experience.

And stable, dexterous robots like the Spot Mini could be put to work in dangerous environments and conflict zones to prevent humans from being exposed to risk.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 31st, 2018