The Elephant in the Image [new study]

Can state-of -the-art visual analysis software always be relied on to find the elephant in an image? Akshay Raj Dhamija and colleagues at the VAST lab (Vision And Security Technology) at the Department of Computer Science, at University of Colorado, at Colorado Springs, US. have recently investigated the robustness of automated elephant detector systems. The team […]

Untrained modern youths and ancient masters in self(ie) portraits

What do modern youths and ancient masters have in common? One possible commonality is they way they depict themselves in self portraits – specifically whether they tend to prefer giving preference to their left cheek or the right one. “[…] a set of selfies and wefies by modern youths reveals comparable biases to self-portraits and […]

Remove a Nail, and the Painting Falls Off the Wall

An all-star team of computer scientists has come up with better ways to remove paintings from museum (or any other) walls). The team includes Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) member Erik Demaine [pictured here] and RSA Security co-founder Ron Rivest. Their study is: “Picture-Hanging Puzzles,” Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, Yair N. […]

Seeking scientists who have their head in the clouds

Please help us compile a list of scientists who have their head in the clouds. Specifically, we are looking for scientists who choose to picture themselves with their head in the clouds. Here’s an example: Jérôme Hœpffner is an assistant professor at Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, Institut Jean Le Rond D’Alembert. This photo is on his […]