Get the latest tech news
Smithsonian digitizes pollen from 18,000 plant species
Digitizes Pollen From 18,000 Plant Species Digitized Pollen Database for Paleontology Research, Allergy Medicine and More Media Contact A team of researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute is digitizing images of pollen from more than18,000 plant species from the tropics. These images are being used to train a machine-learning model to identify pollen grains, a job that usually takes hundreds of hours of microscopy work by pollen experts.
Pollen reference database such as PollenGEO could potentially serve a myriad of functions in many areas of science and medicine. To resolve these challenges, more than 30 researchers and students at STRI led by staff palynologist, Carlos Jaramillo, are digitizing the entire Smithsonian palynological collection; they are uploading more than 40 million photos of pollen grains from known plant species to create a massive database. Training an AI model to use this massive database to identify samples required collaboration among experts in a range of fields, from botany to computer science.
Or read this on r/technology
