Whale shark identfication software wins Australian U$100,000 prize - 26 October

A method of recognising whale sharks based on the starry night sky has won Australian marine biologist Brad Norman a US$100,000 prize from a watchmaking company.

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After spending hours laboriously cataloguing and manually checking photographs of the sharks, Norman decided there had to be an easier way. A software-developing friend in the U.S., Jason Holmberg, introduced him to Zaven Arzoumanian, an astronomer with the U.S. space agency NASA who suggested that shark spots might be a bit like trying to recognise patterns of stars in the sky.

For the full story, see http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/799

Contributed by Tim Hochgrebe added 2006-10-28