Google's latest moonshot, Mineral, brings robots to Illinois soybean fields

The latest moonshot to come from Google is an experiment in using agricultural robotics to inspect crops and collect data, all in an effort to "transform how food is grown." Called Mineral, the project from the division of Alphabet Inc.-owned Google that uses just one letter as its name — X — is a robot designed to roam over crops and collect data that will help farmers, breeders, agronomists, and scientists. The project was unveiled last week with a blog post and the launch of a new site. The…