Deer in headlights indeed. When a train is fast approaching, deer often pick up not ont he lights themselves, but the sounds and vibrations a train send out. Naturally a deer’s flight instinct kicks in. Yet when deciding where to flee, the ringing of internal alarm bells can sometimes drown out common sense. Turns out more often than not things get to be a bit too much and deer (and moose) tend to go for the path of least resistance (the tracks themselves), which quickly become the path of most resistance…

Read More: Avoiding Collisions With Trains By Fleeing… Onto The Tracks?

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Tanya Strydom is a PhD candidate at the Université de Montréal, mostly focusing on how we can use machine learning and artificial intelligence in ecology. Current research interests include (but are not limited to) predicting ecological networks, the role species traits and scale in ecological networks, general computer (and maths) geekiness, and a (seemingly) ever growing list of side projects. Tweets (sometimes related to actual science) can be found @TanyaS_08.