Denmark the world’s first country to tax farting cows
Denmark will become the first country in the world to begin taxing farmers for Methane emissions from livestock starting in 2030.
Lawmakers agreed Monday to impose a tax of 120 kroner ($25) per tonne of greenhouse gas emitted from livestock, a level that will climb to about $50 by 2035.
The revenues will be pooled into a fund aimed to support the livestock industry’s so-called ‘green transition’.
“We are writing a new chapter in Danish agricultural history,” said farm minister, Jacob Jensen.
Added Nicolai Wammen, Denmark’s finance minister: “We know that a CO2 tax model aligned across all sectors gives us the lowest societal costs in total. What we have now done, from industry sectors to agriculture, shows us that an ambitious green transition is possible.”
Denmark is one of Europe’s largest pork producers and a significant producer of beef and dairy as well. According to government statistics, it is home to about 1.5 million cows.
Ruminant animals such as sheep and cattle release methane when digesting food, which about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Some estimates suggest agriculture is responsible for a third of GHG emissions, half which come from animals.
Cows are by far the biggest culprits, producing about 6 tonnes per year.
But EU lawmakers are taking a huge risk; just last week, New Zealand scrapped plans to tax its agricultural emissions after stiff resistance from farmers.
In the EU, farmers have staged massive and often violent protests that have brought traffic to a standstill and sprayed manure in European capitals this year over proposed environmental policies as part of its so-called ‘Green Deal’.
On Monday EU lawmakers in Luxembourg passed a ‘Nature Restoration Law’ — by a slim 1% majority —which aims to restore as much as a third of arable farm land back to a natural state.
Dutch farm group LTO, one of the country’s largest, on Wednesday issued a statement that said they were “concerned and indignant” over the act. It’s significant because the Dutch farmer’s party BBB gained seats for the first time in last week’s EU elections.
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Chinese scientists create robot with brain
made from human stem cells
- Researchers have developed brain-on-chip technology to train the robot to perform tasks such as gripping objects
The robots have an artificial brain as well as a neural chip. Photo: Tianjin UniversityThe brain-on-chip technology developed by researchers at Tianjin University and the Southern University of Science and Technology combines a brain organoid – a tissue derived from human stem cells – with a neural interface chip to power the robot and teach it to avoid obstacles and grip objects.
The technology is an emerging branch of brain-computer interfaces (BCI), which aims to combine the brain’s electrical signals with external computing power and which China has made a priority.
It is “the world’s first open-source brain-on-chip intelligent complex information interaction system” and could lead to the development of brain-like computing, according to Tianjin University.
“[This] is a technology that uses an in-vitro cultured ‘brain’ – such as brain organoids – coupled with an electrode chip to form a brain-on-chip,” which encodes and decodes stimulation feedback, Ming Dong, vice-president of Tianjin University, told state-owned Science and Technology Daily on Tuesday.
BCI technology has gained widespread attention due to the Elon Musk-backed Neuralink, an implantable interface designed to let patients control devices with only their thoughts.
Tianjin University now says its research could lead to the development of hybrid human-robot intelligence.
Brain organoids are made from human pluripotent stem cells typically only found in early embryos that can develop into different kinds of tissues, including neural tissues.
When grafted into the brain, they can establish functional connections with the host brain, the Tianjin University team wrote in an unedited manuscript published in the peer-reviewed Oxford University Press journal Brain last month.
“The transplant of human brain organoids into living brains is a novel method for advancing organoid development and function. Organoid grafts have a host-derived functional vasculature system and exhibit advanced maturation,” the team wrote.
Li Xiaohong, a professor at Tianjin University, told Science and Technology Daily that while brain organoids were regarded as the most promising model of basic intelligence, the technology still faced “bottlenecks such as low developmental maturity and insufficient nutrient supply”.
In the paper, the team said it had developed a technique to use low-intensity ultrasound, which could help organoids better integrate and grow within the brain.
The team found that when grafts were treated with low-intensity ultrasound, it improved the differentiation of organoid cells into neurons and helped improve the networks it formed with the host brain.
The technique could also lead to new treatments to treat neurodevelopmental disorders and repair damage to the cerebral cortex, the paper said.
“Brain organoid transplants are considered a promising strategy for restoring brain function by replacing lost neurons and reconstructing neural circuits,” the team wrote.
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