Writer Darren Naish, who blogs at Tretrapod Zoology, took this photo of a Larus gull attempting to chow down on an awkwardly shaped starfish. (And, really, are there any other kind of starfish? Especially when you're trying to fit them in your mouth whole?)

You might remember Larus gulls from a recent piece I wrote on speciation and evolution. According to Naish, they might have another place in the story of evolution, as well. Regardless of how Sisyphean this gull's dinner plans may appear, Larus gulls actually (successfully) eat a lot of starfish. So many, in fact, that, as Naish explains in a recent post, they might be prompting one species of starfish to slowly turn a different color — an adaptation that makes the species less visible to gulls.

My new ambient-sound-while-working internet radio jam: Brazilian Birds.

(Photo: Toucan eye, a Creative Commons image from doug88888's photostream)]]> http://boingboing.net/2013/03/09/brazilian-birds-ambient-inter.html/feed 10 http://boingboing.net/2013/01/15/bird-sings-dubstep-convincing.html http://boingboing.net/2013/01/15/bird-sings-dubstep-convincing.html#comments Tue, 15 Jan 2013 18:06:35 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=205894

Nicotine is one of nature's bug zappers. Seriously. Lots of plants have evolved to produce bug-repelling chemicals as part of their defense mechanisms and tobacco happens to be one of those plants.

So when city-dwelling birds use the fluffy, nicotine-soaked material from discarded cigarette butts to build their nests it might not be the unmitigated ecological disaster that most of us imagine when we hear that "birds are building nests out of discarded cigarette butts". Researchers at Mexico’s Autonomous University of Tlaxcala think the nicotine in the cigarettes might help keep chicks healthy — essentially serving as an urban substitute for the parasite-repelling plants the birds would have used in the wild.

At Culturing Science, Hannah Waters explains the idea...

But birds are actually quite fond of the chemicals found in some smelly plants, otherwise known as aromatics, from which “essential oils” are derived. Aromatic plants produce these chemicals to defend themselves against insects and other animals that would take them for food—but birds have their own use for them. Some nest-building species, including starlings and blue tits, regularly replenish their nests with fresh aromatics, and scientists hypothesize that the birds use these chemicals as parenting tools.

How would plant-derived chemicals help birds raise their chicks? It’s possible that the chemicals boost the immune systems or development of the chicks so that they survive better after they leave the nest; this is known as the “drug hypothesis.” Alternatively, the “nest protection” hypothesis suggests that the plant chemicals act as insecticides, driving parasites and other harmful insects from the nest.

Nicotine is an insecticide, although we don’t often think of it that way. Tobacco plants generate nicotine because it defends against herbivorous beetles that would otherwise devour the plants–which means a smoker’s buzz is caused by a plant’s chemical defense mechanism. Some remnants of that insecticide remains in cigarette butts left in city streets, which are then transported into bird nests.

Read the full story

This lovely mechanical contraption is designed to mechanically recreate bird song. The video uploader says this was made about 120 years ago in Paris, probably by Blaise Bontems who was known for this type of automaton. It's a fascinating, delicate device!

The Finest Bird Song of 1890]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/12/07/finest-mechanical-bird-song-of.html/feed 14 http://boingboing.net/2012/11/12/the-cool-science-behind-a-real.html http://boingboing.net/2012/11/12/the-cool-science-behind-a-real.html#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2012 22:09:23 +0000 Maggie Koerth-Baker http://boingboing.net/?p=193725

This hummingbird is sleeping in a specialized research container connected to a machine that measures how much oxygen it is breathing. According to forrestertr7, who posted the video to YouTube, this experiment was part of research aimed at understanding the differences between the metabolism of hummingbirds and that of larger species. After its nap, the hummingbird was released back into the wild.

But what about the snoring? Does the hummingbird really need a tiny, little beak strip, or what? I asked science blogger Joe Hanson, who posted this video to Twitter earlier today, and he did some research. Turns out, it's not totally unreasonable to call that adorable little wheeze a "snore". But, at the same time, hummingbirds have very different biology than we do. A snore for them isn't the same as a snore for us.

Hummingbirds have incredibly high metabolic needs. To do all that buzzing around and to keep their tiny bodies warm, they eat the human equivalent of a refrigerator full of food every day, mostly in the form of high-energy nectar and fatty bugs. Because of their small size, they also lose a lot of body heat to the air. In order to preserve energy on cool nights, they have the ability to enter a daily, miniature hibernation called torpor.

...Just before morning, their natural circadian rhythms kick in and they start to thaw out, like heating a car engine on a cold day. What we see in the video is probably a bird coming out of torpor (which is what the scientists in the video were studying), starting to breathe in more oxygen to raise its body temperature, and making that adorable snoring noise.

Read the full story at Joe Hanson's blog, It's Okay To Be Smart

Bird and Moon comics offers this helpful illustration of how evolution screwed over the parakeet.

See the full comic, "Evolution Sucks"

Ravens are a big deal in the Game of Thrones universe. They’re used to transmit information from one place to another, and often seem to be portents of death. This week’s episode begins with a whole dead basket of ‘em, as Prince Theon, in his latest act of swaggering idiocy, has killed all of Winterfell’s birds so that no one can send word to Robb Stark.

Of course, sending notes tied to birds is generally a slow and imperfect form of info transit, especially in the world of this story, which is well-established as massive and hostile to easy passage. I’ve previously written that one of the reasons the series appeals in our current clime is its bold, dialog-provoking approach to patriarchy and sexuality – I wonder if its lavishing upon the preciousness of information and the incredible conveniences we now enjoy in the internet age is another?

This episode in particular illuminates the disadvantages of being unable to communicate well in wartime. Catelyn releases Jaime Lannister in the hopes of getting her daughters back fom King’s Landing – would she have done that if she’d been able to know that King’s Landing only has one of her daughters? People in Westeros are just now finding out that Daenerys is fast becoming a desert queen wreathed in dragons – no one knows, of course, that the Qartheen have stolen them from her. Arya's current ability to kill quickly with just a word, via her odd ally Jaqen H'ghar, is her biggest salvation right now.

We also see the extent to which the TV series is devoted to fleshing out relationships in ways the books don’t -- the books are written in a way that lets you infer sentiment from actions, but that doesn’t necessarily work on TV, where we’re analyzing the subtleties of behavior (and falling into Robb Stark’s eyes, like I was this episode).

 So we’ve been getting this extensive development of the probably-not-a-good-idea relationship between politically-betrothed Robb and Talisa. She’s a character that could turn out to be entirely an invention separate from the books, which see Robb’s duty in conflict with his feelings over Jeyne Westerling of The Crag, not a runaway lady incognito as a battlefield medic.

It’d take a bit of creative writing at this point to make Talisa turn out to be the same woman, but it doesn’t really matter – sorry, purists, but at least when it comes to TV, this is a much more dynamic and more interesting arc; the books see Jeyne as herself barely a footnote, the kind of girl you can’t really imagine anyone thinking of risking an army, a war and a kingdom to marry.

Of course, the idea that the woman actually wasn’t especially worth it would enforce Robb’s major weakness – that he’s not disciplined or experienced enough to manage this highly complicated martial situation on his own, might bungle into such an impulse conflict. But this Robb is too likeable to be quite that dumb, so he gets the kind of woman a guy with good values would admire.

I'm okay with it, especially as that love scene between Talisa and Robb was so incredibly naturalistic, simple and clumsy, relieved of the touch-of-porn grotesquerie that sex in this show usually gets. I always suspected it’d be kind of awkward having to deal with so many leather laces in one’s leather jerkin or doublet or whatever, and look! She laughed, and it felt so genuine.

Tyrion is also someone for whom romantic love can be a weakness, which is why the only thing that’s struck an odd note to me about the show so far is that Cersei seems to have figured out her brother may be falling in love with “his whore” (even though she identified the wrong woman to keep as a hostage)  before that’s even been clear to we the audience.

We know he confided in her and Bronn about his only traumatic experience with love as a young man under his dad’s thumb; we’ve seen him take pains to hide her in the castle – but also her stark refusal to surrender much of the material comfort she expects as the consort of a Lannister son. I guess we see it once Tyrion is out of Cersei’s sight, his panic when he runs to Shae, who is nonplussed, as dutiful about holding and kissing him as she is about brushing Sansa’s hair.

I suppose Tyrion is a person who’s learned well to veil his most vulnerable emotions -- which is why the scene of his pledge to protect her felt so vibrant, felt like it came from such a private, fragile place in him, even as the pair are positioned such that his physical smallness, face upturned, is emphasized relative to her.

We very much want, for his sake, to believe that she loves him, and not just the Lannister gold, but can you really tell?

The other whore, though, the one Cersei has kidnapped thinking it’ll force Tyrion to let her son Joff sit out the upcoming battle with Stannis – this one has seen some things. Remember her flashing her naughty bits farewell to Theon from the back of a horse-drawn cart, heading to the big city hoping to find better fortune?

She seems to have found her way into a leadership role at King’s Landing’s fanciest brothel, and now she’s in favor at the palace itself. Since then she’s been forced at crossbow-point to sexually abuse another girl in front of the young king and now she’s brought out before the queen with a badly-lashed back and a bloody face, accused of being the Hand’s woman.

I like this character; she’s sort of an avatar for the greatest disadvantages of Game of Thrones’ sexual patriarchy, and it feels like a more meaningful decision on the part of the show to represent prostitution and exploitation through a single character we can like and recognize, rather than portray a litany of nameless “whore” characters whenever the story required one, which it frequently does.

But despite the increased attention to romantic and sexual nuance, this episode thrives on its roots in family love. Since Theon seems stubbornly dedicated to his humiliating course, Yara shifts from shaming him in front of her men to talking to him in private about how her presence could soothe his screaming when he was a “terrible” baby. Catelyn has tried to give her son the space to win his war, but he can’t forgive the way her fear for his sisters broke her down and led her to interfere.  The wincing agony of Tyrion’s ongoing cat-and-mouse with his sister continues; like Yara and Theon they have a ruthless parentage in common, but cannot bond as adults.

It’s true that Cersei is motivated by bitterness about how being a woman means she’ll never get the power she wants, so putting her son on the throne is the next best thing. But she really does love her children, and like any mother is desperate to keep them safe. Just like another “mother”  -- Daenerys will risk her life to get her dragons back, because they are the only children she can ever have, now.

In all cases, major world events and the lives of smallfolk all around Westeros are being affected by subtle, complicated family attachments, whether that’s a mother’s love for her children or the burdens that adults have inherited from their parents. It’s that sort of detail that keeps Game of Thrones from being a simple war drama.

It’s not the fault of the show that Daenerys’ bit of the story has become the least interesting, after last season’s fascinating tale of a child-bride’s coming into her own in the arms of a brutal horselord – and losing a black-magic infused fight for his life, and hatching dragons in a fire.

I mean, you probably do have to go downhill from there. But watching her ineffectually crisscross foreign cities and lose some things and then get others isn’t very engaging – we want her to just reach the scene of all the action already, and it feels like it’s taking forever. Fortunately, these exotic cities she’s been in are breathtaking to look at, and so is actress Emilia Clarke’s expressive face.

Aren’t you glad that Bran Stark and his little brother Rickon are still alive after all? They're really the only full innocents in this thing, poor kiddoes. Wily Osha has hidden them away (along with Bran’s lumbering pal Hodor) in the crypts below Winterfell. Can’t wait to see what they’ll do now. This episode is called "The Prince of Winterfell" -- at the end we know that refers to the little boy that really holds that title, not the manchild that pretends at it.

"My Favorite Museum Exhibit" is a series of posts aimed at giving BoingBoing readers a chance to show off their favorite exhibits and specimens, preferably from museums that might go overlooked in the tourism pantheon. I'll be featuring posts in this series all week. Want to see them all? Check out the archive post. I'll update the full list there every morning.

For children of a certain nerdy persuasion, "archaeopteryx" is liable to be the first five-syllable word they ever pronounce. That's because archaeopteryx was a dinosaur with feathers, and wings. The first specimen was uncovered in 1861, and most of us probably grew up being told that archaeopteryx was the first bird. That isn't exactly true. Today, most paleontologists say it wasn't the ancestor of the birds we know, but rather a relative of that ancestor—a lower branch of the bird family tree that died away. That said, archaeopertyx is still incredibly important to our understanding of what the earliest birds might have been like, and archaeopteryx specimens are still incredibly rare, coveted things.

There are only 11 archaeopteryx specimens in the entire world, all hailing from one region of Germany. Most of them are in museums in Europe. But one archaeopteryx—in fact, one of the best-preserved of the bunch—resides in a tiny museum in Thermopolis, Wyoming. For the artistically inclined: Imagine running across a second, legit version of the Mona Lisa in a small museum in Wyoming with no crowds and no lines. In 2007, reader Mark Ryan and his brother got to see the Thermopolis archaeopteryx and took the photo of it posted here.

My brother and I had scheduled one of our regular "geo trips" out west and learned that the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, a cool museum in Thermopolis, Wyoming, had somehow acquired an Archaeopteryx specimen (one of only 10 in the world) and would be placing it on display starting the week we were going to be in Wyoming. Thermopolis is located about 2 hours southeast of Yellowstone National Park, but that didn't stop us from driving the 5 hours from Laramie just to see it. It was fantastic! They had the actual fossil on display (I've heard that most of the big museums only display casts of the Archaeopteryx specimens they own). There were no crowds, no lines, no special exhibit fees, just the "Thermopolis specimen" in a small window display in a hallway leading to the main exhibit hall.

According to Wikipedia, Thermopolis got its archaeopteryx as a donation from a Swiss collector who'd previously owned the specimen. It's also worth noting that the Wyoming Dinosaur Center seems to loan out its archaeopteryx to other museums quite frequently. So, if you're in the area, and you want to see an archaeopteryx, you should probably check with the museum before you get your hopes up. ]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/01/31/my-favorite-museum-exhibit-9.html/feed 5 http://boingboing.net/2011/12/26/how-long-have-we-known-that-di.html http://boingboing.net/2011/12/26/how-long-have-we-known-that-di.html#comments Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:39:49 +0000 Maggie Koerth-Baker http://boingboing.net/?p=135952

I spent most of my childhood with books about dinosaurs that played up the ancient beasties as overgrown lizards. The connection between dinosaurs and birds, while kind of flipping obvious once somebody points it out, was not much discussed among laypeople until I was in my teens. (That would be the 1990s, FYI.) 

But, among scientists, the idea of a dinosaur-bird relationship is nothing new. In fact, Thomas Henry Huxley was making that connection back in the 1860s. On the Dinosaur Tracking blog, Brian Switek tells the fascinating story of how Huxley started to realize that dinosaurs and birds were related—a discovery that's all the more impressive because he figured it out without the help of some of the key transitional fossils we have access to today.

Huxley did not suggest that birds were the direct descendants of dinosaurs. So much geologic time was unaccounted for, and so few dinosaurs were known, that Huxley could not point to any known fossil creature as the forerunner of birds. Instead he made his argument on anatomical grounds and removed the issue of time. Dinosaurs were proxies for what the actual bird ancestor would have been like, and flightless birds (such as the ostrich and emu) stood in for what Huxley thought was the most archaic bird type. (We now know that Huxley got this backwards—the earliest birds could fly, and flightless birds represent a secondary loss of that ability.) As Huxley went about collecting evidence for his case, though, he also gave dinosaurs an overhaul. They were not the bloated, plodding, rhinoceros-like creatures that Richard Owen had envisioned. Dinosaurs were more bird-like than anyone had imagined.

In October of 1867, Huxley met with John Philips, an English geologist and a curator of Oxford’s museum. As Huxley related in his 1870 paper “Further Evidence of the Affinity Between the Dinosaurian Reptiles and Birds,” Philips wanted to discuss details of marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs in his museum’s collection, but as he and Huxley made their way over toward the displays they stopped to look at the bones of the carnivorous dinosaur Megalosaurus. Then Huxley spotted something peculiar:

As Prof. Phillips directed my attention to one after the other of the precious relics, my eye was suddenly caught by what I had never before seen, namely, the complete pectoral arch of the great reptile, consisting of a scapula and a coracoid ankylosed together. Here was a tangle at once unravelled. The coracoid was totally different from the bone described by Cuvier, and by all subsequent anatomists, under that name. What then was the latter bone? Clearly, if it did not belong to the shoulder-girdle it must form a part of the pelvis; and, in the pelvis, the ilium at once suggested itself as the only possible homologue. Comparison with skeletons of reptiles and of birds, close at hand, showed it to be not only an ilium, but an ilium which, though peculiar in its form and proportions, was eminently ornithic in its chief peculiarities.

Earlier naturalists had made a mistake. They had misidentified the shoulder girdle, and one part of what was thought to be part of the shoulder was actually part of the hip. Another strange piece, previously thought to be a clavicle, also turned out to belong to the pelvis. This rearrangement immediately gave the dinosaur a more bird-like character.

If you look at the bottom of the image at the top of this post, you can see how much the re-arrangement of megalosaurus' parts changed our conception of what the whole creature looked like. Where other scientists saw a lumpy, obese crocodile, Thomas Henry Huxley saw a saber-toothed chicken.

Image: Ballista via CC

One of the most common arguments you'll hear against evolution (or, at least, one of the most common arguments I heard growing up amongst creationists) had to do with transitional forms. An eye is a valuable thing, this argument goes. But half an eye? That's just a disability.

Like many of the really common arguments against evolution, this one crumbles the minute you start to apply the slightest bit of fridge logic. Sure, half an eye is less useful than a full eye. (Or, more accurately, a clustering of light-sensitive cells don't have all the functionality of a modern eyeball and optic nerve system.) But, if most of the other creatures have no eyes, and you have a few light-sensitive cells, you've got an advantage. And an advantage is all it takes.

Now apply that to the evolution of birds. One of the cool things about this process is that it appears that feathers evolved before flight. In fact, feathers seems to have evolved rather independently of flight.

You might ask: What's the point of that? How are feathers an advantage if they can't help you fly? Is this just about looking pretty? Maybe. But on his blog, The Loom, Carl Zimmer presents another hypothesis. Feathers and wings, even without flight, might have given their owners a physical advantage over bare-skinned cousins. The birds in this video aren't flying. You can see that their feet don't leave the ground. But the act of flapping those feathers around helps them to walk up inclines that would otherwise be impassable walls. That's enough to escape a predator and live to breed another day. And it's also pretty damn astounding to watch. You'll find more footage at The Loom.

Video Link

You're welcome. Also, I'm sorry. [video link]]]> http://boingboing.net/2010/12/17/parrot-sings-let-the.html/feed 23 http://boingboing.net/2010/08/18/hitchcock-vs-the-bir.html http://boingboing.net/2010/08/18/hitchcock-vs-the-bir.html#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:55:09 +0000 Andrea James

Video Link. Brosmind posted this homage to the 1963 Hitchcock classic.

(Thanks, Jeff O!)]]> http://boingboing.net/2010/08/18/hitchcock-vs-the-bir.html/feed 7 http://boingboing.net/2010/03/26/cantos-de-aves-do-br.html http://boingboing.net/2010/03/26/cantos-de-aves-do-br.html#comments Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:16:59 +0000 Meara O'Reilly I recently learned that some birds have been found to be able to isolate and control different parts of their vocal tract independently, allowing them to sing simultaneous double tones or alternate between frequencies very rapidly. I'm not sure about the particular species below, but I think it's safe to say that numerous birds on this album are at least using similar 'mad avian skills' to sound like synthesizers.

Avhinado

This album, recorded by celebrated ornithologist Johan Dalgas Frisch, (and first released on the Sabia label in 1961), was once in the Top 50 of Brasil's popular record sales. President João Goulart actually gave JFK a copy when he came to visit (click on thumbnail below for photographic evidence). Talk about a country with its musical priorities in the right place!

This collection of recordings isn't readily available in the states, but if you can't track down a used LP or torrent, it looks like you can buy it from this site in Brasil.

This post is a special 'avian edition' of a series about music that disorients the senses. I've found that some of the most amazing and jarring auditory illusions are not the usual scientifically distilled or synthesized ones, they're often found in folk music and made by people's voices. Of course, in a way, it makes perfect sense - the vocal chords are some of the most complex and advanced musical instruments in existence. They are ubiquitously available, and we've been experimenting with them for longer than any other sound-making implement. ]]> http://boingboing.net/2010/03/26/cantos-de-aves-do-br.html/feed 17 http://boingboing.net/2010/03/25/chants-mongols-et-bo.html http://boingboing.net/2010/03/25/chants-mongols-et-bo.html#comments Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:16:47 +0000 Meara O'Reilly The liner notes say it was recorded in: "Mongolia and Buriatia in 1967, 1968, and 1970 in the course of field work organized in the frame work of the Protocole d'Echanges Culturels between France and Mongolia, and as part of an exchange program with the Academy of Sciences in the USSR."

"In Mongolian tradition, neither music nor singing can strictly-speaking be described as specialist activities. In the past, everyone was expected to be capable of singing and playing the fiddle at festivals..."

Imitation Of The Flute (with the nose)

From the liner notes again: "The player flutes with his nose. Some air really does pass through the nose. The player's lips are slightly parted but do not move: only the corners of the mouth tremble sightly and the cheeks are tensed. This tension brings him out in a sweat. The melody comes from the movements of the tongue. Anyone who possesses this technique is able to reproduce any melody"

Both of these tracks just blow me away with how much the singers sound like birds:

Song To The Glory Of A Horse

Nostalgic Love Song

For you die-hard record sifters, the info is Vogue Records LDM 30138 (recorded in 1973). Here's a full track-listing. You might be able to download it somewhere if you peek around the internet. ;-) I call for a re-issue!

This post is part of a series about music that disorients the senses. I've found that some of the most amazing and jarring auditory illusions are not the usual scientifically distilled or synthesized ones, they're often found in folk music and made by people's voices. Of course, in a way, it makes perfect sense - the vocal chords are some of the most complex and advanced musical instruments in existence. They are ubiquitously available, and we've been experimenting with them for longer than any other sound-making implement.]]> http://boingboing.net/2010/03/25/chants-mongols-et-bo.html/feed 12 http://boingboing.net/2010/03/22/before-they-were-the.html http://boingboing.net/2010/03/22/before-they-were-the.html#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:41:44 +0000 Meara O'Reilly Grand Ole Opry and the National Barn Dance, The Cackle Sisters, (also known as the DeZurick Sisters) were raised on a farm in Royalton, Minnesota. To develop their unique yodeling style, Caroline De Zurik has said they simply "listened to the birds and tried to sing with the birds."

You can hear and download more tracks on wfmu's beware of the blog. I especially love tracks like "Peach Pickin' Time in Georgia","Little Golden Locket" and "Sing Hallelujah", where they seem to hit the sweet spot between their bizarre but amazing stereo-clucks and brilliantly close harmonies.]]> http://boingboing.net/2010/03/22/before-they-were-the.html/feed 21 http://boingboing.net/2010/01/30/bird-strikes.html http://boingboing.net/2010/01/30/bird-strikes.html#comments Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:11:36 +0000 Jessamyn West The FAA has a lot of public data on air traffic safety if you know where to look for it. Last year, in response to a highly publicized bird strike, the FAA went live with their Wildlife Strike Database. The US Bird Strike Committee has had their presentations published in the science journal Human Wildlife Conflicts. Read about A decade of U.S. Air Force bat strikes, Forensic bird strike ID techniques and Suspending vulture effigies from roosts to reduce bird strikes. Not for the squeamish: the wildlife strike photo gallery.

Releasing the data was an about-face for the FAA, which refused to release the records because it felt doing so would jeopardize safety. If the information were made public, the argument went, it would discourage airlines and airports from reporting bird strikes. The agency changed its position under pressure from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who says the move is part of a larger shift toward full disclosure. "The Department of Transportation is, among other things, a safety agency," he wrote on his blog. "Public disclosure is our job. The sea change in government transparency is beginning, and we are happy to be a part of it."