June 6, 2025 (Industry Intelligence Inc) –
A roundup of recent trends pitting technology against the printed word:
Trees: AI tool expedites wood recycling by detecting contaminated construction materials
Construction-site wood waste often heads to landfills due to the difficulty of separating reusable wood from pieces contaminated by asbestos, mold or paint. Researchers from Australia’s Monash University and Charles Darwin University have developed an AI system to make that identification process more feasible with 91% accuracy. The team’s work introduces the first real-world image dataset of contaminated wood, enabling deep-learning models to detect six contamination types—paint, chemicals, metals and more—from standard color photos. The AI can be deployed on camera-enabled sorting lines, drones or handheld devices for on-site decision-making, TechXplore reported June 3. This type of automation “opens the door to scalable, AI-driven solutions that support wood waste reuse, recycling and reclamation,” said Dr. Milad Bazli, who co-led the research team.
Trees: Colleges bring back ‘blue books’ to combat AI-generated student work
As students increasingly lean on AI tools like ChatGPT for assignments, professors are fighting back by reintroducing paper “blue books” to force handwritten, in-person exams and essays. Sales of these exam booklets have jumped 30% at Texas A&M and nearly 50% at the University of Florida this school year, while sales surged 80% at UC Berkeley over two years, The Wall Street Journal reported May 23. That’s unsurprising given a Study.com survey that showed almost 90% of college students using ChatGPT for homework assignments, Entrepreneur reported May 29. These trends have provided a boost to Pennsylvania-based Roaring Spring Paper Products, which has sold millions of blue books annually, after sales plummeted a few years ago in the era of the pandemic and remote school.
Trees: Paper diagnostic test for avian flu delivers results for both poultry and humans
While egg prices may have grabbed recent headlines, the avian flu behind the shortage still threatens poultry farms across the globe. Purdue University researchers aim to curb outbreaks by introducing a paper-based test for rapid, on-site detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1. The test requires an oral or nasal swab, minimal training and a simple water bath, with results visible to the naked eye, according to a university release on June 2. Beyond poultry, the test can be used for diverse species, including dairy livestock, wildlife such as birds and rodents, and even humans. At this point, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has determined the public health risk of H5 bird flu as low, but it only takes one key mutation for the virus to infect human respiratory cells, said Mohamed Kamel, a postdoctoral research associate who worked on the test. “This diagnostic tool could play a crucial role in mitigating the spread of the disease and safeguarding both animal and human health,” Kamel said.
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