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The Zebra's Stripes: A New Theory of Animal Vision

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After a software glitch generated an unexpectedly strange-looking video, Roy's efforts to debug the system led to a theory of animal vision offering surprising explanations of diverse and long-standing biological puzzles: Why do people cock their heads when they're puzzled? Why do dogs wag their tails when they're happy, but horses do it in anger? What visual trick do snakes perpetrate when moving in an S shape? And what does all this have to do with zebra stripes? Oh - and it will change the way you view your pets.

Anyone outside NIST wishing to attend must be sponsored by a NIST employee and receive a visitor badge. For more information, contact Stephanie Shaw at 301-975-2667. Colloquia are videotaped and available in the NIST Research Library.

Roy Feinson, Vision Software Developer and Author

Created March 4, 2013, Updated January 5, 2017