The Atlantic

A Game-Changing AI Tool for Tracking Animal Movements

Scientists are already using it to study octopuses, electric fish, surgical robots, and racehorses.
Source: Mackenzie Mathis

In a video, a rodent reaches out and grabs a morsel of food, while small, colored dots highlight the positions of its knuckles. In another clip, a racehorse gallops along a track; again, small, colored dots track the position of its body parts. In a third video, two human dancers circle around each other as those same dots unfailingly follow the sometimes fluid, sometimes jerky movements of their limbs.

These videos are showcases for , a tool that can automatically track and label the body parts of moving animals. Developed this year by and , a pair of married

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic8 min readAmerican Government
The Return of the John Birch Society
Michael Smart chuckled as he thought back to their banishment. Truthfully he couldn’t say for sure what the problem had been, why it was that in 2012, the John Birch Society—the far-right organization historically steeped in conspiracism and oppositi
The Atlantic17 min read
How America Became Addicted to Therapy
A few months ago, as I was absent-mindedly mending a pillow, I thought, I should quit therapy. Then I quickly suppressed the heresy. Among many people I know, therapy is like regular exercise or taking vitamin D: something a sensible person does rout
The Atlantic7 min readAmerican Government
The Americans Who Need Chaos
This is Work in Progress, a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here. Several years ago, the political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who is based in Denmark, wanted to understand why peop

Related Books & Audiobooks