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Emperor Penguins Counted From Space
HairyNevus writes "An international team of scientists used satellite technology to conduct a census of emperor penguin populations from outer space. Honing in on their colonies by looking for the brown patches of penguin guano that stand out in the snowy antarctic, high resolution images were taken and used to count the total number of emperor penguin species on the continent. The result was a census of 595,000 penguins, almost double the previous estimates of 270,000-350,000 emperors. This includes seven new colonies which had not been previously identified. Although this is uplifting data, computer modeling still shows that loss of ice flows in the northern reaches could result in problems for the penguins."
Are they super-intelligent Hive-Mind Killer Penguins planning to take over the world?
They are headed North...straight towards humanity.
nt
Now we know the exact number of Linux desktop users world-wide.
The most expensive alternative to counting sheep has been developed.
the total number of emperor penguin species on the continent.
Can a satellite really tell us the number is not 1?
how many shoggoths?
The video in the article mentions that the computer does most of the counting and I get the feeling that surveying animal count from aerial photographs might only work with penguins in Antarctica. It's relatively easy to distinguish between snow, poop and penguin from a computer vision algorithm stand point seeing how it boils down to distinguishing between black or brownish spots with little noise from other unwanted objects. Not that I'm trying to say it's trivial to program it but it it's a lot simpler problem than say counting people in a city from space or cars.
[FUCK BETA 2.6.2014]
It would have been MUCH cooler had they counted Gentoo Penguins from space.
Is guano produced by others or is "penguin guano" redundant?
I got this picture of a Google Earth car driving through a group of penguins.
They're COMING!
And I, for one, welcome our new penguin alien overlords.
It's the only way to be sure.
An international team of scientists used satellite technology to conduct a census of emperor penguin populations from outer space
How do you tell which ones are from outer space?
We could just have "go out & be counted" days, ie, to see how many people we are on Earth.
Of, for public opinion surveys (& citizen initated referenda), to vote, say, In Favor, you'd go out to have the top of your head photographed, in a Hi-Res satellite image. :-)
These mechanisms have -none- of the security issues of eVoting systems I've read about (except the PhotoShop issues, I guess).
And they'd be pretty hard to dispute, by dictators, if their elections were held by such means.
Shall we call this: [Non-E-]Crowd-Voting? :-)
Oh, we'd have to be careful - eg, when publishing & implmenting "photo / voting-times" - for survey or election districts cut by time-zone boundaries. ;-)
well if you saw the pictures I seriously doubt that this is accurate
the "image recognition" is basically counting blocks (with attributes) its not very good (I've seen it)
the satellite imagery from space was awful resolution... they need to learn from search and rescue basically they need to gather their search pattern from the satellite and then fly a plane/helicopter/drone (U2 plane would be best) over and take the imagery and do a count based on that...
I think everyone was assuming the imagery was like google earth but in fact most of that is taken from planes etc...
looks like Press release rather than a serious count
however does anyone know of any good pre built image recognition tools to actually count animals ?
regards
John Jones
There's no such phrase as "honing in" on something.
That phrase is similar to "intensive purposes", in that it results from a perpetuated mishearing of another phrase. You can "home in" on something - the phrase is "homing in". But to 'hone' means to sharpen (one's blade, one's skills, one's wit etc.)
I am sure some will find some links that suggest that it's such a common mishearing that it has now become acceptable, but I don't agree. Both the Merriam-Webster (for US English) and the OED (for UK/Commonwealth English) state that "hone in" is an error.
i'm sorry slashdot, i don't care how much rovio paid you, "angry birds space" is not something we need plastered...
oh wait, never mind
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Bats, equitorial seabirds, arctic seabirds and many things that crap in one place in large volumes produce guano. It is a word cool and exotic enough to be in a list of ingredients for an energy drink, but it really does just mean deposits of crap that have built up over a long time. In some places it's a valuble resource due to it being a easily obtained source of nitrogen for fertilizer and explosives. In the days of gunpowder it was paticularly valuble and was apparently a major source of income for countries like Chile.
Is this a new thing? Are they taking over our bases? What do they want!!!!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I'm deeply suspicious whenever a new unproven methodologies yield wildly different data than previous methodologies.
Was the methodology itself tested against known quantities?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
...did the penguins topple over backwards as they watched the satellite pass overhead? (OK I know it's a popular myth, long propagated by bored RAF pilots and long debunked by British Antarctic Survey experiments, but it's still a funny image).
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
high resolution images were taken and used to count the total number of emperor penguin species on the continent
Since emperor penguins are a species, how can they count more than one species of Emperor Penguin?
What other people think of me is none of my business
It isn't mentioned in the article but the technology isn't yet advanced enough to count the penguins while they are moving, so the satellite had to kill them all using a death ray. They hope to have this problem resolved for next years census, which is predicted to be much quicker.
One reason the population of penguins is increasing, is because of the huge reduction in the baleen whale population in the Southern Ocean. Baleen whales and penguins compete for the same krill, so fewer whales means a lot more food for the penguins. When the whale populations rebound, the penguins population will return to normal.
They know their shit. Solid scientists.
sudo eat my shorts
I think the northern reaches they are referring to are the northern areas of antarctica. Naturally this is where the loss of ice flows is happening first.
What other people think of me is none of my business
Birds with fur? Did you graduate from public school?
If that blows your mind, see this: http://www.topix.com/forum/city/west-plains-mo/THPIF1N4OJTH3ODJA
Well I dont know if you are serious... but an increase in population could be expected for some species due to global warming. The only expected outcome from there being nor global climate change is populations would stay the same.
What other people think of me is none of my business
That scares me, emperor penguins must be the most dangerous creature on Earth if they can only be counted from space.
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Damn, now breeding even more genetically modified penguins for taking over the world has become to risky...
You gotta love the spin on this.
Facts:
- scientists count birds, find twice as many as previous counts/expectations (TFA doesn't say whether the original estimates were counts or just estimates)
So if they found twice as many birds as they previously counted/estimated, and climate change has been going on for 20/50/200 years, surely the penguins are in fact benefiting from climate change?
Seems logical to me. They live in a extreme environment, climate change will make it less extreme, therefore they should benefit. There must be something on the planet that benefits from it getting warmer after all, and penguins would seem to be a logical candidate.
But that would go against the media message that climate change is universally bad for everything. *sigh*.
This is useful science, it's a new tool for actually counting animal populations as opposed to guessing their populations by estimating the amount of habitat they have to live in. It'd be great if we could just have the science, reported with no spin or political message, just 'hey science fans, here's something new!'. ...but science is now a political tool, so no, every serving of facts now wrapped in a handy hygienic message so you know what to think!
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
... based on incomplete information, while insisting that the models are still valid and the situation is still dire. What is more likely is that the penguins will adapt to their environmental changes ... as they have for millenia. Remember? They didn't just arrive on the planet and occupy their niche a few years ago.
Love the science but am mightily weary of doom and gloom alarmist extrapolations to secure funding or public interest.
I wonder if, in the penguin colonies, there are alarmist penguins saying that if they continue to procreate there will be no unstained snow left for little penguins to play in.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
If the climate models are correct
and if the ice shelves behave according to their models
and if predators move in to the niche (presumably according to some model)
and if, importantly, the penguins themselves in no way adapt to the changing situation
then the penguins MAY be affected.
Each 'if' contributes an error that makes for a big margin over all. Why not just say, 'we really don't know what this means for the future, but we're hoping to develop a better understanding of the present' ... and nothing more.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Why do people fail to comprehend what they read and then decide they need to "correct" it? The words "It is a word cool and exotic enough to be in a list of ingredients for an energy drink" should have been the clue instead of the cause of confusion. Guarana, taurine, or a similar trace of pointless fairy dust might as well be bat guano because the name is the important thing instead of the lack of effect or lack of contribution to the taste.
Crap is just as valid a word as "shit" in English.
"Two-hundred-thousand and four... two-hundred-thousand and five..."
"Okay, so that's a six-piece nugget for Dave, two large vanilla shakes for me 'n Joe... Tim? What did you want, makin' a lunch run."
"One... sec... two-hundred-thousand and si--"
"Mike, you're grabbing lunch? Cool, get me two apple pies."
"They have strawberry too, now."
"Ooh, then two of each--four total."
"Two-hundred-pies and four... oh god."
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
This is really awesome news, I've always wanted to shoot an emperor, but they won't let me into Japan for some reason.