In a way, cities are giant science labs, providing an environment for organisms thatās unlike anywhere else on the planet. Even though cities have been around for thousands of years, the way that humans are urbanizing our planet in recent decades has become radically transformative for entire ecosystems. Urban livingā¦
Birds probably know quantum physics better than many humansāit just comes to them innately.
A small contingent of chunky, dove-like birds cautiously patter around a clearing in a park in suburban Sydney. Suddenly, a feral cat pounces out from some nearby brush, narrowly missing a flock memberās feather plume-festooned head with a paw. In a panicked huff, the birds take flight, and the air fills with a seriesā¦
Step aside lizards, looks like we have a new animal overlord. A recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that pigeons can be trained to understand some words, sort of.
Itās no secret that living in a dense cityāwith cars pumping out endless amounts of pollution āisnāt going to do wonders for your lungs. But one London tech company wants to know exactly how carcinogenic that air is, and itās recruiting pigeons as part of its air-monitoring arsenal.
City dwellers encounter pigeons every day. But have you noticed that you never see a baby? One big reason: they stay in the nest until theyāre adult-sized, which is why pretty much the only people who see pigeon babies are those who raise them, or know somebody who does ā like the person who snapped this pic.
Yesterday, in 1904, pyschologist B.F. Skinner was born. His contribution to the world? This pigeon-guided missile system, among other things. Yes, really.
If you've spent your week wondering if pigeons can distinguish Picasso from Monet, get ready to have your questions answered. But the answer just makes us want more.
We may think of pigeons as "flying rats," but research published today in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that their wild counterparts were an important source of nutrition for some Neanderthals.
Around sixty-seven thousand years ago, someone ate a Rock dove. In doing so, that individual began an association between a primate and a bird that would persist up until the present.
A quiet Paris day is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a massive feather that floats down into the streets. But that's just the herald of a greater threat: an enormous pigeon strong enough to topple the city's most famous landmarks.
The group behaviors of birds are fascinating to watch, from the swooping arcs of swallows to the incredible murmurations of starlings. These extruded time videos give a bit more form to those movements, tracing the paths of different birds through the sky.
Today I found out about Project Pigeon andProject X-Ray, WWII plans to use pigeons to guide missiles and (literal) bat bombers.
Driverless cars as life savers, pigeons as pedestrians, lip readers as crime stoppers, and alcoholics as city employees. These are just a few of the urban reads on our radar this week.
Who hasn't dreamed of soaring over a city, dipping between the rooftops, peering into people's windows? A new simulator allows anyone to have a real-life birds-eye view of London.
When the Google Street View team rolled through Tokyo recently, a bunch of writers from a Japanese humor website were there with these eerie pigeon masks. The "human pigeons" then stood around gawking at the Google van, and here are the weird results.
Pigeons are everywhere in cities, but they don't get a lot of love. True, they can spread disease and aren't very personable, but maybe they're not getting the credit they deserve. Like city-dwelling humans they have places to be and lunch deals to scavenge. And like good urbanites (and penguins) they know their wayā¦
Pigeons are among the most naturally gifted navigators in the animal kingdom. And while we've only recently begun to shed light on why this is, humans have been using pigeon's innate homing abilities to our advantage for ages - and often in very unusual ways.
These days there are plenty of opportunities to take interesting photographs from unusual angles, including strapping tiny digital cameras to birds. But some early aerial photography was rather more clunkyāand used massive cameras strapped to the breasts of pigeons.
Pigeons just don't get the same love that canaries, blue jays, and chickadees get. To rehabilitate the images of these vermin birds, artists Julian Charriere and Julius Von Bismarck decided to give them a makeover, creating a machine that draps pigeons and dyes them a wide variety of colors.
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