Pigeons can identify cancerous tissue on x-rays, study finds

Pigeons can distinguish between healthy and cancerous tissue in x-rays and microscope slides with an accuracy rate of up to 99%, according to a new study in Plos One.

In a series of three experiments, led by Richard Levenson, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, it was found that pigeons have the capacity to learn how to identify whether an image shows healthy or cancerous breast tissue. The birds “share many visual system properties with humans”, according to the study.

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During the first experiment, eight pigeons were presented with 144 breast tissue images, at various levels of magnification and with and without color. The birds could then peck a blue or yellow button on either side of each image, to indicate whether it was cancerous or healthy.

If they chose correctly, they were rewarded with food but if they chose incorrectly, they were presented with the image again and again until they correctly identified it.

“With some training and selective food reinforcement, pigeons do just as well as humans in categorizing digitized slides and mammograms of benign and malignant human breast tissue,” Levenson told the International Business Times.

A pigeon being trained to screen images of benign and malignant breast tissue University of Iowa/Wassermann/PA