Ah, the life of a lion roaming the African savanna: sleep, chase a wildebeest, play with your cubs, fight a little with that one uppity lioness, yawn, catch a gazelle, eat the gazelle, drink at the watering hole, sleep some more and…send a text message? Yep, it’s happening in Kenya, where conservationists are now getting automated SMS messages from GPS-enabled collars on the increasingly threatened animals. Unlike traditional texting from your garden-variety teenager, though, these messages aren’t filled with LOLs, gossip and the teen angst du jour, but up-to-the-minute location information to allow researchers to track the lions’ movements in greater detail than ever possible before. Continue reading “What Do Lions Have In Common With Teenagers? OMG, You’ll Srsly LOL!”
gps
‘The Heavens Declare The Story They Trod’: Tracking Sports Teams Using Advanced Satellite Monitoring
The Vuvuzela. What is it? World cup soccer fans know it well and have described it in every way possible, occasionally with words of endearment but more often with an air of disdain. The dictionary defines it as a stadium horn that is approximately 2 feet long and produces a long monotone sound. And boy does that sound pack a punch! Picture a stadium packed to the brim with excited fans playing the vuvuzela and you will begin to understand why many a fan chooses to hit the mute button on their TVs when watching this year’s FIFA World Cup. Even sports commentators cannot stop talking about it. But to be brutally honest, the reason why most of us are tuning in to watch one of the biggest recurring sporting events in the world is not to cultivate a love-hate relationship with a stadium horn. Rather we all want to egg on (and hopefully not egg splatter) our ‘Titan warrior’ sports men who are strategizing over how best to break the resolve of their opponents. Continue reading “‘The Heavens Declare The Story They Trod’: Tracking Sports Teams Using Advanced Satellite Monitoring”
