digit Posted July 27, 2023 Share Posted July 27, 2023 Since moving to Gainesville I've had the opportunity to work more closely with the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH). In addition to volunteer digging at the Montbrook site I also get to work on prepping fossils in the prep lab on campus. This brings me into contact with the major players at the museum which is a great fringe benefit to be able to have access to chat with those with lots of paleontological experience. Bruce MacFadden is on the second year of a program to develop an interesting course plan for STEM teachers around Florida. It's an interesting program combining science, paleontology (kids love fossils) and AI which is really trending these days (I promise this text was not written by ChatGPT). As part of this program the teachers will train an online AI program to recognize megalodon teeth from photos. After training one of the things they will do with the class is to see how the AI will do at recognizing partial megalodon teeth (AKA fraglodons). Since each teacher is given a number of fraglodons to use while teaching this program to their students we have a need for less than perfect megs. The teachers get to keep the fraglodons as they will (hopefully) continue to teach the program year after year. I've been able to contact some fossil hunters I know who would likely have a cache of broken megs looking for a good use. Those donations were helpful for the first cohort of teachers but the second cohort (new STEM teachers) are getting ready to work this program into this year's class and we are in need of new fraglodons for them to use. Bruce brought in some of the fraglodons they used while teaching the program this year so I could take a photo showing the variation in completeness. Note that these are all Florida fraglodons so they are all the usual grayish-black in coloration. Bruce mentioned that color is not a factor and broken megs of any color would be very welcome (even little corners of a root with just a bit of serrated enamel showing). He said that they could really use around 100 fraglodons so I'm putting this out to the forum to see if any of you have some of these less than perfect teeth sitting around in your collection looking for a higher purpose. If you think you have some fraglodons that would help this year's STEM teachers get kids interested in AI and fossils, please contact me via PM. Thanks in advance for all who have something they'd like to contribute. Cheers. -Ken 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isotelus2883 Posted July 27, 2023 Share Posted July 27, 2023 32 minutes ago, digit said: (I promise this text was not written by ChatGPT sounds exactly like something an AI would say. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stingray Posted July 28, 2023 Share Posted July 28, 2023 (edited) Yeah it’s AI written Edited July 28, 2023 by Stingray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digit Posted July 28, 2023 Author Share Posted July 28, 2023 Does not compute....does not compute....divide by zero error...floating point exception...disk sector not found....warning Will Robinson!!! Reboot initiated.....coming back online.... Ahem, I don't know what you are talking about... Laugh all you want (as long as you fork over some fraglodons). Cheers. -Ken 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted July 28, 2023 Share Posted July 28, 2023 Hi Ken, The museum should already have a ton of partial megs from the Bone Valley Formation alone. I believe it was the source of teeth for the kids' sandbox/fossil search at the Tampa Fossil Fest for years. Did the museum actually run out? Jess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North Posted July 28, 2023 Share Posted July 28, 2023 Sadly I don't have any megalodon teeth even though I have tried to find one. But if recocnision is based on pictures, would it be enough if members would be able to send good quality pictures of their partial megalodon teeth? There's no such thing as too many teeth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digit Posted July 28, 2023 Author Share Posted July 28, 2023 6 hours ago, siteseer said: The museum should already have a ton of partial megs from the Bone Valley Formation alone. I believe it was the source of teeth for the kids' sandbox/fossil search at the Tampa Fossil Fest for years. Did the museum actually run out? To my knowledge, a lot of the sandbox fossils for the Tampa festival are provided by several of the society's own members. The museum does often get donations of bulk fossil material from collectors (or often their next of kin ) and some of that may end up in the similar sandbox kid's activity presented by the FLMNH now and then. If the museum had a stash of megs that were not of scientific value to the collection Bruce may have already claimed them earlier for the first cohort of this "science in the classroom" project. I know Bruce has some contacts with collectors from NC and some have donated generously to keep him well stocked with smaller shark teeth for other parts of this project and similar projects involving educational outreach. 5 hours ago, North said: But if recocnision is based on pictures, would it be enough if members would be able to send good quality pictures of their partial megalodon teeth? Spectacular thinking outside the box. I only know general details from Bruce and one of his former students who are the ones working directly with the STEM teachers on this program using AI for shark tooth identification. I believe they do mine the internet for a lot of photos of complete megs for the image data used to initially train the AI. There are lots of nice (complete) meg photos out there--not as much as images of cats but enough for use in a grade school project. There may be photos of fraglodons out there as well but likely it would take much longer to locate these among the complete pretty teeth images. I believe part of keeping the kids interested in this project is to let them interact with real fossils (even frags) and produce the imagery themselves to feed as input to the trained AI. Cheers. -Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North Posted July 28, 2023 Share Posted July 28, 2023 1 hour ago, digit said: I believe part of keeping the kids interested in this project is to let them interact with real fossils (even frags) That is very true, nothing beats the real deal. I only saw fossils one time as a kid (Moroccan mosasaur teeth) and I still remember that moment. There's no such thing as too many teeth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ammonite_hunter Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 On 7/27/2023 at 5:45 PM, digit said: Bruce MacFadden is on the second year of a program to develop an interesting course plan for STEM teachers around Florida. It's an interesting program combining science, paleontology (kids love fossils) and AI @digit This is incredible! I'm a Google AI Software developer and I have masters in Zoology, former Science teacher and passion for Fossils. This is totally in my wheelhouse. I would love to be involved in this endeavor even in a volunteer capacity. Any idea if they are looking for any help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digit Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 36 minutes ago, Ammonite_hunter said: @digit This is incredible! I'm a Google AI Software developer and I have masters in Zoology, former Science teacher and passion for Fossils. This is totally in my wheelhouse. I would love to be involved in this endeavor even in a volunteer capacity. Any idea if they are looking for any help? I'm sure Bruce would love to hear from you. He's an incredible researcher and one of the nicest guys I've had the pleasure to know. You can find his contact information on the FLMNH website--drop him an email and introduce yourself. Let Bruce know Ken recommended you contact him about fossils and AI. Cheers. -Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digit Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 Here's the link to save you time: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/earth-systems/team/bruce-macfadden/ Cheers. -Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ammonite_hunter Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 1 hour ago, digit said: I'm sure Bruce would love to hear from you. He's an incredible researcher and one of the nicest guys I've had the pleasure to know. You can find his contact information on the FLMNH website--drop him an email and introduce yourself. Let Bruce know Ken recommended you contact him about fossils and AI. Cheers. -Ken Thank you so much! Will let him know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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