Pigeons Good At Spotting Breast Cancer, University of California, Davis (UCD) Study
Years of schooling and training are needed to teach pathologists and radiologists to spot cancer on medical images, but a new study finds that pigeons can be about as accurate as these professionals, with the help of a few food pellets.
People don't have to worry about bird brains diagnosing their cancers any time soon, but the study's lead researcher says pigeons may have a future standing in for pathologists and radiologists in the kinds of mind-numbing studies of new technologies that involve examining thousands of images.
"If you showed me 10 images, I’d be ok," said Dr. Richard Levenson, of the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.
People don't have to worry about bird brains diagnosing their cancers any time soon, but the study's lead researcher says pigeons may have a future standing in for pathologists and radiologists in the kinds of mind-numbing studies of new technologies that involve examining thousands of images.
"If you showed me 10 images, I’d be ok," said Dr. Richard Levenson, of the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.