Machine learning helps scientists distinguish ancient human, dog poop

Researchers have developed a new machine learning algorithm that can determine whether ancient excrement was deposited by a human or a dog. Bones and artifacts are great, but ancient poop can offer archaeologists tremendous insights, too -- insights into dietary patterns, parasite evolution and more. The only problem is that it can be hard to identify the owner of really old feces. Specifically, scientists have trouble differentiating between ancient human and dog feces. Dogs have been hanging out around humans for thousands of years.