Hooray Machine
← Back to today · Science & Nature
The good stuff keeps

Science & Nature stories.

Today and earlier editions, with their original dates and sources.

edition

Science & NatureIn use

AI checked 1,176,380 tunnel photos this season and found the 384 showing endangered Cape Town toads using their road underpass

Cameras in six toad tunnels under Peninsula Road in Cape Town’s False Bay Nature Reserve snap a photo every 15 seconds, all night. This season that came to 1,176,380 photos. An AI model built by AIMS South Africa student Joshua Salako picked out the 384 that show an endangered Western Leopard Toad, and the Nature Connect team confirms every one.

Primary source · Source · The story + sources
More like this?

edition

Science & NatureIn use

An AI camera in a County Antrim milking parlour is helping the McMaster family spot lame cows in their 300-strong herd much earlier

George McMaster started farming by milking eight cows in a byre and checking them with his own eyes. Now an AI camera in the milking parlour near Islandmagee films each of the family’s 300 cows every day and flags changes in how they move. His son Jack says it picks out lame cows the family would have missed.

Primary source · Source · The story + sources
More like this?

edition

Science & NaturePromising

AI listens to bee buzz to track pollinator activity

Ecologists at UMass Amherst and Cornell trained two AI sound models to pick bees out of field recordings, including telling honey bees from bumble bees. In a peer-reviewed study, the models’ counts closely tracked trained observers, and they now run inside Raven Pro, a sound tool many wildlife researchers already use. A recorder in a flower patch can stand in for soapy traps that kill bees.

Primary source · Source · The story + sources
More like this?

edition