Mahadevan, who won an Ig Nobel Physics Prize in 2007 for studying how/why wrinkled sheets become wrinkled, has a new study out about how/why bird eggs become bird-egg shaped. The study, by Mahadevan and several collaborators, is: “Avian Egg Shape: Form, Function, and Evolution,” Mary Caswell Stoddard, Ee Hou Yong, Derya Akkaynak, Catherine Sheard, Joseph […]
Tag: Birds
Brain Size and the Risk of Getting Shot
Some humans are always hunting for thoughts about their brains. Some humans are always hunting for birds. Sometimes, as in a newly published research study, these sometimes occurrences combine in provocative ways. The study is: “Brain Size and the Risk of Getting Shot,” Anders Pape Møller, Johannes Erritzøe, Biology Letters, vol. 12, no. 11, November […]
Bird jousting in a wind tunnel: How to avoid collisions
Birds, not carrying weapons of any sort, jousted by special arrangement of three scientists in Australia. Details are in the study: “Strategies for Pre-Emptive Mid-Air Collision Avoidance in Budgerigars,” Ingo Schiffner, Tristan Perez, and Mandyam V. Srinivasan, PLoS ONE, 11(9): e0162435. The authors, at the University of Queensland, Australia, report: Trajectories of birds flying towards each […]
The Glossiness of Grackles (and other birds)
“The glossy sheen of healthy hair is an ideal of human beauty; however, glossiness has never been quantified in the context of non-human animal signaling. Glossiness, the specular reflectance characteristic of polished surfaces, has the potential to act as a signal of quality because it depends upon material integrity and cleanliness.” For those reasons, Matthew […]