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Massive EU Program To Study Three-legged Dogs
DMandPenfold writes "A multi-billion dollar European Union IT research fund will help study the behavior of three-legged dogs, it has been revealed. The fund will support extensive studies into how three-legged dogs move. There is a particular focus on how the dogs balance and function, given their missing limb."
HUH?
Really? Billions of dollars in three legged dogs ey?
What in the world are they thinking about? I know I know, three legged dawgs.
NO SIG
Much more interesting are the few two legged dogs that manage to get around.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Did they hear about the three legged dog that walked into a saloon?
The barkeep asked him what he wanted.
He said: "I'm lookin' for the man that shot my paw!"
Towards the bottom of the article, it mentions that the purpose of the study is "... to develop advanced robots that can help animals and even humans cope with function after the loss of a limb."
The headline and summary make it sound like utterly frivolous bullshit, when it's actually important research into motion and balance techniques in living creatures that can be applied to robotics.
Typical Slashdot.
I guess there's some irony knowing that the EU has as much issues with wasted government grants as we do here in the US.
The ladies call me the Three Legged Dog, and I'd love to show you how I move.
1 step closer to automail... :)
I just don't see what possible value that studying three-legged dogs to bring to the table. How to help leg-challenged horses?
How about as fodder for jokes?...
This traveling salesman is _way_ out in the hills and approaches a farmer to try to sell his wares. He notices a three legged pig hopping around in the front yard and asks the farmer about it. "That's no ordinary pig!" exclaims the farmer. "That pig is smart! We all owe our lives to that thar pig! Why, last winter we wuz all asleep and a spark from the fireplace caught the cabin on fire, and we would've all burned up. But that pig squeeled and beat on the front porch to wake us up and saved all our lives! And last sprang my son wuz a swimmin in the pond and took a cramp and woulda drown, but that thar pig come a runnin to the back fourty where I was a plowin and drug me by the overalls til I saw him and saved his life again!" "Wow, but what happened to his leg?" asked the salesman. "We owe it all to that pig! Why, it wouldn't be right to just eat him all at once!"
Here's the actual project site: http://locomorph.eu/
Obviously not all of the 1.3 billion USD (not actually "multi-billion" -- the Euro/Dollar conversion isn't that bad!) is going to research on "three-legged dogs". It's about robotic locomotion in general, of which that may be one component (although the project web site doesn't particularly mention it).
Also, it's a four-year project split between six universities. That's about $50 million per year for each site, which is still a big grant but doesn't seem so crazy for the field.
Most of the article focuses on 1 billion vs 3-legged dogs. Only the last paragraph mentions that a total of 16000 researchers will be funded. I'm quite sure some of the remaining 15995 are doing something useful or interesting too, but somehow they neglect to mention this.
A typical example of modern media hyping things up, a submitter that makes it even worse, and a Slashdot editor who thinks what the heck it's summer lets put it on the front page.
I liked my next sig a lot better
It used to be that The U.S. let the world in everything: steel production , electricity production, coal, silly government boondoggle projects, etc. Now we wake up one day and find that the Europeans are pulling ahead of us. leaving us in the dust in 3 leg dog research.
Another sad note on the decline of our once great country.
HUH?
Really? Billions of dollars in three legged dogs ey?
What in the world are they thinking about? I know I know, three legged dawgs.
Well the EU wants to understand Muslims, so why not start by a a study of Muhammad. Since he is long since dead any other dog that isn't walking on all paws will do.
You could be on to something there .... standing in a roundabout is asking to lose a leg.
obligatory Homestarrunner reference: http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail109.html
"I can make it on my own."
I was just watching Life Aquatic last night and there was a three legged dog running around, its movement was pretty incredible especially when it was running.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
actually there are eight accepted meanings for the term Irony - I think at this stage it can mean whatever you want it to.
Millions, maybe. Billions to study animal locomotion ? NFW
Hi, The Locomorph Group ( http://locomorph.eu/ ) is made up of science and engineering partners. The science partners (University of Antwerp and the University of Jena, where the dogs are being researched) are guiding the robotics research on shape-changing robots at Ryerson University (the only non-EU partner, located in Canada), the University of Zurich, the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne and the University of Southern Denmark. More stories on the project can be found here: http://idw-online.de/de/news379765 (in German) http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS_FP7&ACTION=D&DOC=2&CAT=NEWS&QUERY=0129d6293767:57a8:2486afcf&RCN=32339 (in English), http://www.lemondeinformatique.fr/actualites/lire-l-ue-octroie-1-2-milliard-d-euros-a-la-recherche-en-robotique-et-dans-les-reseaux-31224.html (in French), http://www.jenapolis.de/69486/nicht-nur-spielzeug-wissenschaftler-demonstrieren-laufroboter/ (in German) There are also some informal photos from our meeting last week: http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~jasmith/locomorph/photos/jena_2010/ Other photos can be found here: http://idw-online.de/de/image120758 http://www.jenapolis.de/69486/nicht-nur-spielzeug-wissenschaftler-demonstrieren-laufroboter/
Breed for 3 legs - wears out the parks and other grassy spots less - net savings over 4 centuries = $1 billion (not counting inflation)
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
I had a rottweiler mix that lost his front left leg to osteosarcoma. At slow speeds, he would move kind of like an inchworm, hopping his remaining front leg forward, then jumping both back legs forward, wash, rinse, repeat. He could do it while keeping his head on the ground, say following a scent trail. At higher speeds (and even after the amputation he was faster than his brother) he would do a run in which his two right legs would move, then the remaining left rear would move. His head would bob up and down as he ran. Oh, and when he peed, he would lift his left rear leg, and balance on his two right feet. BTW, the cancer came back and got him a year after the amputation - bone cancer of the back left leg, and we didn't want to try him as a two legged dog, though I understand some of those get around as well.
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
As I understand it, mouse legs are shaped differently from dog legs. Correlating the study on mice against the study on dogs would help show how adaptations to limb reconfiguration differ with body proportion.
For it to be a scientifically viable study, you pretty much have to cut legs off. 3 legged dogs are sufficiently unusual that depending upon the study you'd have to get before data on pretty much every dog in a country to get enough before and after information to make for a valid study. At which point you've pretty much negated the point of doing a study in the first place. Likewise if you wait until afterwards you're going to be dealing with data that's not scientifically valid as you don't know what it looked like before hand and have no idea what specific changes have happened as a result.
For $100,000 they can watch me walk on my hands lol. At that price, can they afford not to?
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Interesting study ;
I wonder if there is interest in studying the adaptive phase of the subjects transfering between 4 to 3 legs. What effect does age of the subjects have? I hope they study the transition of gates on tread mill.
I would love access to this data and a peak at the models. Using Neural-nets? Evolutionary nets?
I imagine a 3 legged robot would be the most cost effective proposition system.
Cool stuff!
The implication that the EU is spending billions of euros on a program to study 3-legged dogs is completely misleading. The fund in question appears to be FP7 (Wikipedia article), which funds a huge variety of researchers on many differnet topics.
If you look at what I think is the relevant EU site, the project received EUR 2.7 million from the 'Embodied intelligence' Initiative within the 'Information and communication technologies' (ICT) Thematic area of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).
Which wouldn't make much of a story I guess - "multi-billion" sounds waaay more impressive.
-Chris
...of how far Europe is ahead of the USA in science.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Indeed, the real story here (though not news by any means) is the inability of the British press to report on the EU without being willfully misleading. The headline "European £1bn IT programme to study three-legged dogs" is not strictly speaking false - it just fails to mention that that 1 billion will be used for many other things as well. A more reasonable article is here: European IT Research Gets €1.2 Billion From EU.
OMG ! Those billions of dollars could have been invested in the military in order to bring democracy in so many countries !
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS !
Stupid europeons ! They'd all be speaking german if it wasn't for us ! Just give us the money ! We are good with money !
Shitty original reporting, combined with intellectual laziness of the Slashdot poster and editors.
If they run out of 3-legged dogs to study, we can always make more!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
http://locomorph.eu/home/project/description
If people stopped reading slashdot because they didn't like the articles, then slashdot editors would change their act.
But we don't. We watch Idols and so they serve us Idols. The news has become froth at the mouth headlines because that is what people watch.
Follow the money, the money always comes from the viewer. YOU (and me)
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Looks like the €1B goes to 16,000 separate participants -- the Locomorph project is just one of those. Soooo, an average of about $80,000 each. :-/
Oh I'm sure he does. Luckily he's got his trusty .45 to protect you from the commie zombie eco-nuts.
He's also the guy to see if you have some FORTRAN problems.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Why are they all named "Lucky"?
#include bier;
"There is a particular focus on how the dogs balance and function, given their missing limb." I'm not sure that giving the dog their missing will make any difference, and I don't think many three legged dogs still have their third leg sitting around...