Detecting the Sex of a Chicken Egg

 'About seven billion male chicks - not wanted for meat or eggs - are killed around the world each year, usually in shredding machines or by gas.' This is really wasteful and cruel.

There are genetic tests that can be done on eggs to sex them. But they are not widespread yet due to the expense and complicated process they require.

In 2018 it was discovered that looking at the blood vessels in human eyes can be used to detect gender. This was not something widely expected by experts in looking at retinal scans. 'gender (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) = 0.97)'.

I think it would be really interesting to make a dataset of chickens eggs, their sex when they hatch, size measurements, weight and photos of the eggs under various types of light. Possibly Infrared is the most useful kind of light.  With this it might be possible to make a classifier that can tell you if an egg is likely to be male.

Raspberry pi cameras have advanced a lot recently so making the rig to take these measurements would be much easier than it used to be. Tying these to the eggs eventual gender would at least involve some smart labelling.

Do you know anyone with the necessary chickens and interest to try make up such a dataset?

Short Supply of Flu Vaccines

 

On February 21, 2020 i blogged here about how 'Ireland should make the Flu Vaccine Free for All'. I thought this because the risk of Covid was high enough to make it really worthwhile this year.  It seems that there is now not enough flu vaccine to meet demand in Ireland this year. 

I wrote to various politicians. Including current Health Minister Stephen Donnelly.

	22 Feb 2020, 17:58
to Stephen.Donnelly

Dear Mr Donnelly 

Congratulations on your reelection as a TD. 

I would like you to consider it be Fianna Fáil policy for the government to offer free flu vaccines to everyone in Ireland this autumn. 

Firstly, Research from Canada says offering such free flu vaccination is cost effective[1]. Secondly, Ireland has particular issues with hospital overcrowding during flu season which makes reducing these cases very valuable to us. Thirdly, possible covid19 spread means any spare capacity we can get in our health system is particularly valuable this year[2].

Orders for doses of flu vaccines have to be made relatively soon. I understand the process of forming a government at the moment makes making such an increased ordering decision for use this Autumn more difficult.

Thank you for your attention.

   Best regards,

[1] Systematic review of the cost-effectiveness of influenza immunization programs by Eon Edward Kwokho Ting https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/70706/1/Ting_Eon_201511_MSc_thesis.pdf

[2] http://liveatthewitchtrials.blogspot.com/2020/02/ireland-should-make-flu-vaccine-free.html

And his office replied

Dear David,

 

We thank you for your correspondence, and considerate thinking.

I have raised your concerns and proposals with Stephen Donnelly.

 

Kind regards,

 

 Office of Stephen Donnelly T.D.

There could be many reasons that there is not enough flu vaccine this year. But I think this exchange shows that 'No one thought or suggested before March that we would need more flu vaccines' is not a reason.