Sunday, March 7, 2021

Digital Necromancy?

 

Gerard Troost
Picture of daguerreotype circa 1848
On Display at Tennessee State Museum - Nashville (2010)
Miss Margaret Lindsley Warden Collection
 Tennessee Division of Geology - Bulletin 84


Recently the website MyHertiage Deep Nostalgia™ became available that allows you to animate still pictures using artificial intelligence algorithms.  In a sense, it can allow one to digitally animate those that are dead.

As a test, I submitted two images of long dead paleontologists: Gerard Troost (1776-1850) and William Borden (1823-1906). I have documented their lives in earlier posts [Troost 12-13-2009 LINK & Borden 11-12-2009 LINK] and included still frame pictures used for this trial.

William Borden Picture from Baird's History of Clark County, Indiana (1909)
 



 


Assassin Bug Fossil

 


This image shows an unidentified assassin bug insect fossil found in the Florissant Formation of Teller County, Colorado, USA. It dates to the Eocene Epoch of the Paleogene Period.

Thanks to Doug for the image.