Friday, November 2, 2007

A University of Washington professor announced that he and his team are able to create 3D statues like the one pictured at right by overlaying dozens of photos from Flickr. As he said in the release, "The big breakthrough here is being able to compute very accurate 3D models from people's vacation photos." The professor came up with a software tool called Photo Tourism, which allows them to compute depth based on using the various angles that tourists have taken pictures from. As the German co-author explained, "You get multiple views from different points of a scene, and then you find the same point in different views and infer from that the depth of the object." Urine as Chemical Fingerprint: University of Liverpool scientists have discovered that female mice identify potential mates by a series of proteins in the male mice's urine. Apparently, the ladies pick their mates based on who has most recently urinated on the floor. The discovery could lead to an explanation of alpha-male behavior at frat parties. The team also came up with an excellent new acronym: MUP, or major urinary proteins. As the lead researcher put it, "Each individual has a slightly different set of proteins, allowing each animal to be easily recognised. Our results demonstrate that this protein 'barcode' allows females to identify individual males accurately."

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