Category Archives: birds

Jul1

bird brains.

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How pigeons are helping catch cancer cases in humans

It sounds a bit bizarre, but it’s tue. Among pigeons’ many talents is providing an extra set of eyes for doctors looking for signs of cancer in medical scans. In 2015, researchers enlisted the unlikely medical assistants to identify breast cancer in mammograms to help prevent imaging misses. Now, another team of scientists has recruited the birds yet again to train AI to help do the same.

In a study published earlier this year, researchers trained six pigeons to watch CT scan videos and spot lung nodules, a type of growth that could be a sign of cancer. After the birds learned to spot the lung nodules, they also started recognizing emphysema and ground-glass nodules — both problems they hadn’t even been trained on.

Here’s where AI comes in: The researchers are now trying to channel the pigeon’s keen visual system, which works similarly to the human’s unconscious visual system, to develop medical AI tools that can double, triple, and quadruple check scans. They noted that the pigeon-inspired method will by no means replace radiologists, but rather help ensure scans are understood as thoroughly as possible. Thanks in advance, pigeons!

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“I bet your mom would let me.”
-Pigeon, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the B”
-Mo Willems, author, ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!’

 

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Photo credit: Eastside Autobon Society

Source credits: Nice News, New Scientist, Joshua Howego, Popular Science, Clarissa Brincat

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Psychology, College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, 01610, Worcester, MA, USA

    Muhammad A. J. Qadri, Reuben R. R. Reyes & Gregory J. DiGirolamo
  • Department of Radiology, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, USA

    Daria Kifjak, Bilal Elkaddouri, Alexander A. Bankier, Max P. Rosen & Gregory J. DiGirolamo
May6

living forest.

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waking up early 

sitting in the stillness of the lake

 with the birdsong

of 9 different birds

captivated. 

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“your head is a living forest full of song birds”

-ee cummings

 

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art credit: beth conklin –  Song Birds

Apr13

with feathers.

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i’ve had a feathered visitor

a robin

courting me for the last two days

 wonder what he wants to tell me?

will he return today?

hope that i’m home if he calls.

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* robin symbolism means different things in different cultures and the message robin brings has different meanings at different times. A robin brings hope, renewal, and rebirth. Robin symbolizes new beginnings, new projects, and a sign of good things to come. – bring it.

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“hope” is the thing with feathers –
that perches in the soul –
and sings the tune without the words –
and never stops – at all –
-emily dickinson

 

Jan19

for peanut.

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peanut on the farm – rip, old girl and world champion

Peanut, the world’s oldest chicken, dead at twenty-one: The Chelsea, Michigan  clucker, certified as the oldest living chicken by Guinness last January at age twenty, died of natural causes on Christmas morning, according to its owner, Marsi Parker Darwin of the no-kill farm Darwin’s Eden. In an article last year, Darwin credited her neighbor, Todd Gillihan, with bringing global attention to the hen she rescued from a cold, abandoned egg. He “pestered me,” she said, to go for the world record, resulting in coverage in publications as far flung and prestigious as the Smithsonian Magazine’s website, Washington Post, and the Times of London. A retired librarian, Darwin authored a picture book, “My Girl Peanut & Me,” which is available for on the Darwin’s Eden site.

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“if i hadn’t started painting, i would have raised chickens.”

-grandma moses

 

 

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source credits: ann arbor news, smithsonian.com, ann arbor observer

Oct18

taking flight.

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when playing outside

the kinder found a dead bird

they called out to everyone to come over to see it

 they said goodbye to the bird and told her that they were sad that she had died

  we put a circle of pretty leaves around her to keep her safe on her journey.

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“teach them to be kind to animals and they will grow up to be kind to people too.”

-rumi

Aug25

mocking – birds.

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they are way too clever and a have a flair for sarcastic humor

 

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” at a wildlife rehab facility i met two crows that said, ‘caw’ in a human accent.

they said it like a human reading the word ‘caw’ aloud.

the tech shook her head and said,

“they’re making fun of us. people say ‘caw’ to them all day,

so they’ve started impersonating us.”

-cryptonaturalist

 

 

 

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image credit: google images

Aug21

dove.

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why does the dove sit and visit

day after day

her answer is

this rustic nest

built atop the rail

tucked way beneath the tomato plant

a safe and shaded home

for the baby doves

soon to be welcomed into the world.

 

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“and there my little doves did sit

with feathers softly brown

and glittering eyes that showed their right

to general nature’s deep delight.”

-elizabeth barrett browning

Jul29

early birds.

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fresh fruit breakfast for the early birds

watching the early birders watching the birds

 

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“when you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.”

  • e.o. wilson 
May10

spring chickens.

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the kinder, who are spring chickens, check out the other spring chickens

and the other spring chickens check out the kinder. 

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“the sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken!”

-bob dylan

Mar23

nests.

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robin’s nests created by the kinder using natural materials 

clay, twigs, pinecones, clippings

any robin would be happy to raise her babies in one of these beautiful homes

 

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“wildness we might consider as the root of the authentic spontaneities of any being. it is that wellspring of creativity whence comes the instinctive activities that enable all living beings to obtain their food, to find shelter, to bring forth their young; to sing and dance and fly through the air and swim through the depths of the sea. this is the same inner tendency that evokes the insight of the poet, the skill of the artist, and the power of the shaman.”-  thomas berry