Hacker News
- The Magic of Bird Brains https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-magic-of-bird-brains 38 comments
- Researchers translate a bird's brain activity into song https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/uoc--rta061321.php 8 comments
- Who are you calling bird-brained? An attempt is being made to devise a universal intelligence test. http://www.economist.com/node/18276224 18 comments cogsci
- A brain-eating species called the great tit is threatening other birds — thanks to climate change - National https://globalnews.ca/news/4844790/great-tits-killing-eating-brains-migratory-birds-climate-change/ 3 comments worldnews
- Scientists track the brain-skull transition from early reptiles and dinosaurs to birds https://news.yale.edu/2017/09/11/scientists-track-brain-skull-transition-dinosaurs-birds 3 comments science
- Kendrick Perkins on Joe Mazzulla after the Celtics’ first home loss of the season: “If you take his brain and put it in a bird, the bird is gonna start flying backwards” https://x.com/superiornba/status/1748543347638071535?s=46&t=Yz2rcBHCRvce95ldv9YOyw 244 comments nba
- Chinstrap penguins sleep more than 10,000 times a day -- but just for a few seconds -- while they're guarding their eggs, according to new research that tracked the brain activity of wild, freely behaving birds. https://themessenger.com/tech/penguins-take-thousands-of-micronaps-every-day 81 comments science
- Fish are helping researchers track down the origins of how brains compute maths, because they perceive quantities using similar parts of their brains as mammals and birds. This research could provide a starting point for treating human neurodevelopmental diseases that impair number processing skills https://blog.frontiersin.org/2022/07/14/frontiers-neuroanatomy-fish-estimating-quantities/?amp=1 14 comments science
- Ostriches can adapt to heat or cold – but not both. The ostrich is genetically wired to adapt to rising or falling temperatures. However, when the temperature fluctuates more often, as it does with climate change, the flightless bird with a 40-gram brain finds it much more difficult. https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/ostriches-can-adapt-heat-or-cold-not-both 9 comments science
- Neuron numbers tell the story of brain complexity evolution. Broad comparative study reconstructs the evolution of brain neuron numbers in reptiles, birds and mammals and identifies four major evolutionary changes that pave the way to avian and mammalian intelligence. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2121624119 2 comments science
- Scientifists have identified head diection cells (HD) in the brain of birds that might act like internal compasses to help them navigate during their initial migratory flight https://www.nagoya-u.ac.jp/researchinfo/result-en/2022/02/20220224-01.html 69 comments science
- Researchers can predict what syllables a bird will sing—and when it will sing them—by reading electrical signals in its brain. Having the ability to predict a bird’s vocal behavior from its brain activity is an early step toward building vocal prostheses for humans who have lost the ability to speak https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/decoding-birds-brain-signals-into-syllables-of-song 2 comments science
- Why chickens are so much more than “bird brains” https://ideas.ted.com/why-chickens-are-so-much-more-than-bird-brains/ 3 comments science
- House mice have begun to attack adult albatrosses for the first time and eat the brains of their still-living babies on a British Island in the South Atlantic – an environmental threat that risks pushing the bird into extinction. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mice-eat-birds-brain-albatross-extinct-gogh-island-a9236561.html 12 comments worldnews
- Complex society discovered in birds. Birds can keep track of social associations with hundreds of other individuals -- challenging the notion that large brains are a requirement for complex societies and providing a clue as to how these societies evolved. https://www.mpg.de/14071193/multilevel-society-birds 34 comments science
- Scientists implant "memories" into bird brains to teach them songs they've never heard, using optogenetics, a technique where flashes of light are used to stimulate certain neurons in the brain, in effect, creating auditory memories that would normally be coming from outside. https://newatlas.com/biology/implant-memories-bird-brains-teach-songs/ 512 comments science
- Humans have a magnetic sense of direction like pigeons! 'Compass' found in migratory birds and sea turtles may be shared by people, brain scan study suggests https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6822849/humans-ancient-magnetic-sense-direction-like-pigeons.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 7 comments worldnews
- Great tits are attacking other birds and eating their brains https://www.popsci.com/great-tits-murder-climate-change?src=soc&dom=tw#page-4 3 comments science
- The biggest birds that ever lived were nocturnal, say researchers who rebuilt their brains. Madagascar’s extinct Elephant Birds stood a horrifying 12 feet tall and weighed 1,400 pounds. Scientists thought they were day dwellers like their emu cousins, but found new clues in their olfactory bulbs. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/deadthings/2018/10/30/elephant-birds-night/#.w9-7iwhmhyv 753 comments science
- New study finds that Great tit birds have as much impulse control as chimpanzees. Up to now, such impulse control has been primarily associated with larger cognitively advanced animals with far larger brains than the great tit. https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/great-tit-birds-have-as-much-impulse-control-as-chimpanzees 3 comments science
- Neuroscientists have identified the neural circuit that may underlay intelligence in birds, according to a new study. The discovery is an example of convergent evolution between the brains of birds and primates, with the potential to provide insight into the neural basis of human intelligence. https://www.ualberta.ca/science/science-news/2018/july/neuroscientists-uncover-secret-to-intelligence-in-parrots 4 comments science
- A Canadian team have found several brain genes that make wild birds cleverer than others at foraging for food are linked with those making humans intelligent, which provides an insight into the evolutionary mechanisms affecting cognitive traits in a range of animals. http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/3/eaao6369 5 comments science
- Pigeons better at multitasking than humans. Unlike hitherto assumed, cognitive ability does not necessary require a complex mammalian cerebral cortex. A small bird brain is fully sufficient. http://news.rub.de/english/press-releases/2017-09-26-behavioural-science-pigeons-better-multitasking-humans 10 comments science
- Human hunters may be making birds smarter by inadvertently shooting those with smaller brains http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/does-shooting-birds-make-them-smarter 4 comments science
- Bird Brain: Smart stork hides in zoo loo to duck hurricane http://www.kait8.com/story/33340624/bird-brain-smart-stork-hides-in-zoo-loo-to-duck-hurricane 4 comments nottheonion
- How Woodpeckers Will Save Football: Bird Brains Inspiring New Tech to Reduce CTE Risk http://nautil.us/issue/39/sport/how-woodpeckers-will-save-football 18 comments nfl
- Researchers have discovered that birds can sleep in flight. They measured the brain activity of frigatebirds and found that they sleep in flight with either one cerebral hemisphere at a time or both hemispheres simultaneously http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-08/m-feo080316.php 25 comments science
- Why having a ‘bird brain’ is actually awesome http://www.futurity.org/birds-brains-neurons-1183272-2/ 13 comments cogsci
- Bird brains are dense—with neurons [10.1073/pnas.1517131113] http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/bird-brains-are-densewith-neurons/ 3 comments science
- Adult songbirds modify their vocalizations when singing to juveniles in the same way that humans alter their speech when talking to babies. The resulting brain activity in young birds could shed light on speech learning and some developmental disorders in humans according to a study on zebra finches https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160531165239.htm 4 comments science
- Found this to be fascinating: Device to protect brain from concussions inspired by birds http://www.cbsnews.com/news/device-to-protect-brain-from-concussions-inspired-by-birds/ 4 comments nfl
- Some Birds Are Just As Smart As Apes - "Complex cognition is possible without a cortex. Researchers figure out similarities in brain architecture." http://neurosciencenews.com/bird-ape-intelligence-3801/ 8 comments science
- Dinosaurs evolved the brain power necessary for flight well before they took to the air as birds, according to a new study http://www.nbcnews.com/science/dinosaurs-could-fly-some-had-flight-ready-brains-6c10808230 10 comments science
- Bird brains appeared before birds: "Three-dimensional scans of skulls of early birds and dinosaurs suggests that at least a few species of dinos that were contemporaries of Archaeopteryx had brains with the likely neurological wiring for flight, according to a paper published in the journal Nature" http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/08/01/3815717.htm 7 comments science
- Modern birds have skulls that look remarkably like those of juvenile dinosaurs, offering an unusual explanation for how birds came to have relatively large brains. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21852-birds-got-smart-by-becoming-big-babes.html 14 comments science
- A large flock of birds behave as one group brain, flowing like sentient lava in a space of three dimensions http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=8704649 5 comments science
- Parrot VM 1.2.0 "Bird Brain" released! http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl6.announce/2009/05/msg597.html 33 comments programming
- Bird brains suggest how vocal learning evolved http://www.brainmysteries.com/research/bird_brains_suggest_how_vocal_learning_evolved.asp 4 comments science
- How bird brains are shaking up science http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/09/16/eggheads/ 2 comments reddit.com
- Climate Change Sparks Bloody War Among Birds With Great Tits Killing Flycatchers and Eating Their Brains: Great tits are non-migratory birds that are found across Europe. Pied flycatchers, on the other hand, are migratory, spending winters in West Africa before returning to Europe to breed. https://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-birds-great-tit-flycatcher-war-conflict-brain-eating-1287007 8 comments worldnews