We all know mobile phones are getting better and smarter today. However, I’m sure not many of us realized they could be used for counting animals.
Apparently, researchers at MIT are using mobile phones to keep more accurate counts of owls. The idea is to place mobile phones around the forest and “call owls” from another location. Territorial owls then raise their heads and approach what they think may be an intruder. If they respond with a hoot, the phones transmit the sound back to the “Owl Project” website.
According to the researchers, Goodale and Dale Joachim, mobile phones could be used as an effective way to listen in to how birds are doing in the wild. And we thought they are ideal for accessing the Web on-the-go and as portable media players… 🙂
[Via: textually.org]