Top: mean bird. Bottom: nice bird.

Swan:

A conflict arises between a dog and a swan in Strasbourg, France that is captured on camera. The dog's owner makes the right decision in not fleeing from the swan. Showing an act of dominance may have prevented the swan from physically attacking them. Luckily the situation didn't escalate and the swan retreated, but the pooch remained curious. It's not uncommon for dogs to be curious about other animals, especially when it's the first time they see them.

The owner strokes the dog to keep it calm and keeps him on a leash, which is very considerate of her. If the dog was able to run free, than this video would have been one of a dog-swan quarrel. Swan attacks are rare but not uncommon, and there have been instances in the news where swans attack even humans that entered their territory.

This swan had other things in mind, including showing off his grandeur and huge wings, so you can say it was more of a boasting situation that one of a threatening kind. The swan then leaves the scene to mind its business and all is good again.

Although we're accustomed to seeing white swans, there are also black swans that are much rarer and even more beautiful. These creatures do exist, it's not just a famous movie title.

Condor:

Footage of a baby condor approaching and nuzzling his rescuer went viral on social media but partly for the wrong reasons. Nestor David who filmed the video told Storyful that his cousin Edgardo Della Gaspera rescued the young bird after it fell from its nest and was caring for him when the footage was filmed last month.

This weekend Hollywood is about to make history with The Angry Birds Movie, the first feature film ever to be based on a smartphone app. Read the rest

A screengrab of the defaced website.

"Angry Birds creator Rovio Entertainment Ltd. says the popular game's website was defaced by hackers Wednesday, two days after reports that the personal data of its customers might have been accessed by U.S. and British spy agencies." NSA documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden indicated the NSA and Britain's GCHQ spy agency have the ability to get mobile users' data through various apps, including Google Maps and the Angry Birds games. [AP]

Related: Veracode audited exactly what personal data the Angry Birds app gathers about you. Read the rest

Astronaut Don Pettit is a national treasure—a skilled explainer of science who has taken time out of his many trips into space to make engaging, educational videos for a general audience.

In this video from the International Space Station, Pettit talks about physics in space, using Angry Birds as a model. If you've played the very Earth-based game, you've probably noticed that, when you launch a bird, it moves in an arched trajectory. In space, without the aid of gravity, that's not the case. Slingshot a bird in one direction, and it will just keep going on that direction.

Appealingly, Pettit demonstrates this by, yes, slingshotting a stuffed bird through a Space Station hallway.

Via Virginia Wotring

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From Dandingeroz Designs, from the Philippines (created by Dan Eijah Fajardo, aka Dandingeroz, and Pedro Kramer, aka Badbasilisk). It's currently up for voting as a Threadless t-shirt design.

(MyModernMet via Curiosity Counts via @brainpicker)

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