In 1991, a team led by Washington University in St. Louis paleoanthropologist Glenn Conroy, PhD, discovered the fossils of the first and still the only known pre-human ape ever found south of the equator in Africa after only 30 minutes of searching a limestone cave in Namibia.
Traditionally, fossil-hunters often could only make educated guesses as to where fossils lie. The rest lay with chance finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.
"I don't want to say it's total luck," says Conroy, professor of physical anthropology in Arts & Sciences, "but it's a combination of hard work, meticulous planning and, well, a good dose of luck."
But thanks to a software model used by Conroy and researchers at Western Michigan University, fossil-hunters' reliance on luck when finding fossils may be diminishing.
Using artificial neural networks (ANNs) computer networks that imitate the workings of the human brain Conroy and colleagues Robert Anemone, PhD, and Charles Emerson, PhD, developed a computer model that can pinpoint productive fossil sites in the Great Divide Basin, a 4,000-square-mile stretch of rocky desert in Wyoming.
The basin has proved to be a productive area for fossil hunters, yielding 50 million- to 70 million-year-old early mammal fossils.
The software builds on satellite imagery and maps fossil-hunters have used for years to locate the best fossil sites. It just takes the process a step further, Conroy says.
With information gathered from maps and satellite imagery such as elevation, slope, terrain and many other landscape features the ANN was "trained" to use details of existing fossiliferous areas to accurately predict the locations of other fossil sites elsewhere in the Great Divide Basin.
Because few sites are 100 percent identical, researchers had to "teach" the ANNs to recognize sites that shared key features in common. With the help of guidance from the scientists,
'/>"/>
| Contact: Jessica Daues jessica_daues@wustl.edu 314-935-5230 Washington University in St. Louis Source:Eurekalert |
Related biology news :
1. Center integrates human, animal, environmental health
2. Taking the next step toward advanced artificial limbs
3. Researchers design artificial cells that could power medical implants
4. Evolved Machines Selected as a Prime Contractor for DARPA Program to Engineer an Artificial Olfaction System
5. Scientists identify cell changes leading to impaired artificial kidney function
6. Biomedical researchers create artificial human bone marrow in a test tube
7. TECNALIA uses artificial vision to improve recycling of electronic scrap metal
8. Artificial cells, simple model for complex structure
9. Red pandas reveal an unexpected (artificial) sweet tooth
10. Development of an artificial simulator of the nervous system to do research into diseases
11. Non-wovens as scaffolds for artificial tissue
 |
| Copyright © 2003-2012 Bio-Medicine. All rights reserved. ABOUT | CONTACT US | DISCLAIMER | PRIVACY POLICY | TERMS AND CONDITIONS |  |