elephants
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Researchers tap AI in fight against elephant poachers
Cornell University's Elephant Listening Project is a research effort that tracks African forest elephants through acoustic recordings. Part of the project is geared toward conservation and tracking these elephant populations through the animals' calls helps researchers monitor their movements and, ideally, protect them from poachers. But the project generates seven terabytes of data every three months and it takes researchers up to 12 weeks to analyze the audio recordings they collect. That amount of time hampers any response to threats, but a new collaboration is using AI to analyze the data more quickly.
Smartwatch implants help track elephant sleep patterns
Humans are obsessed with sleep. We've not getting enough of it, and the tech world is flooded with wearables that confirm this fact. Now, scientists hope using activity monitors to study how and why animals sleep will help us get a better night's rest.
The Mog Log: Expectations for Final Fantasy XIV 2.35
I realize it's kind of silly, but I'm still annoyed at Final Fantasy XIV's methods for numbering interquel patches. I get the schema, I really do, but "2.35" to me says a patch that's preceded by 34 others. "2.3.5." would indicate a patch partway through the 2.3 patch cycle. Could we get another dot in there? Please? No, evidently not. And yes, I know we'll probably have an expansion long before we'd be that far through 2.x, it's the principle of the thing. As I write this, we still don't have a preliminary set of patch notes or anything on 2.35, but while it's a "minor" patch it's still adding a fair amount of stuff into the game. This is one of the great parts about playing the game, that however bad some parts of it might be when it comes to balance, it pumps out content as minor patches that makes other studios look painfully lazy. Specifics are left to the audience for speculation. So what am I expecting from this week's little patch, the known and the unknown?
The 'Elephant Listening Project' captures the animal's secret language on film
Elephants might have their own language, one that's communicated through a series of ultra low-frequency rumbles. A new study called the Elephant Listening Project (ELP) is attempting to decode Dumbo by analyzing over 300,000 hours of audio captured from infrasonic (super sensitive) microphones hidden in trees in the forests of Africa. The rumbles are one of the team's most interesting discoveries. While they happen at a frequency almost too low for humans to hear, the noises can be heard for several miles. Mothers will sometimes use a rumble to tell their children to stop playing (pshh, typical mom), or to greet old friends they haven't seen in a while. When it comes to elephants, females are traditionally the chatty ones, while male elephants often just standby and watch.
