THE TRUE REASON WHY DINGOES FLEE FROM THE TUBE-MAN!

A bunch of Australian researchers put an "oversized inflatable human effigy that [they dub] ‘Fred-a-Scare’ [aaah, I love scientists!]" (P) near some food, outdoors. And the science jokers also gear the place with a speaker playing gunshots noises on command.

Then the brains wait and see which of these two tricks of theirs (if any) is able to scare off captive dingoes from getting to the food (they perform three trials, one a day, with a dozen animals).

Well, the bullets voices don't seem to bother the canids much ("11/12 accessing the food; the same as control" (P) on the first trial).

As per our dear waving-&-shaking Fred-a-Scare, ohoh, it surely does the job.

75% of the dingoes, indeed, run away at least once from the tube-man, and, on the last trial, a fat 58% of them keep being scared by it, leaving the food be.

Sooo, the science Aussies conclude that, even if they need field trials to be sure, "in conjunction with other devices and methods, and at intervals that reduce the risk of habituation, the inflatable effigy could provide a valuable tool for deterring dingoes, and perhaps other species, from particular areas, even where food (or potential prey) is present" (P).

Good news for campgrounds and breeders, then.

Buut, dear reader, this dumb blog, in the following cartoon, show you the true reason why dingoes, which are smart animals, stay the heck away from the inflatable tube-men.

 

Dingo & the tube-men (by @sciencemug)

[The tube-men pic by Joshua Coleman, and the field pic by Stephanie Cook are free images (source: Unslpash);  the dingo pic is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license (source: Wikimedia Commons); all pics are adapted by @sciencemug]

Bibliography

- Smith, B.P., Jaques, N.B., Appleby, R.G., Morris, S., and Jordan, N.R. (2020). Automated shepherds: responses of captive dingoes to sound and an inflatable, moving effigy. Pac. Conserv. Biol.

THE TRUE REASON WHY AMERICAN ROBINS MIGRATE EARLIER!

A bunch of researchers from a bunch of US universities finds out that the timing of American robins' (Turdus migratorius) "spring migration to [their] Arctic-boreal breeding grounds" (P) got 12 days earlier in the last 20 years (about 5 days per decade in the 1998-2018 time period).

Moreover, the brains analyze data collected between 2016-2018 from GPS tracking devices stuck on the backs of 55 American robins. And these data indicate that "the [American robins'] arrival timing and likelihood of stopovers, and timing of arrival to breeding grounds" (P) are highly impacted by the environmental conditions the birds find along their migratory paths. Among the factors, the "dynamics in snow conditions" (P) appear to be a key one. 

The researchers' study (P) is published on the journal Environmental Research Letters and can contribute in creating predicting models of birds' responses to climate change.

The findings are coherent with what scientists already know, which is that one of the strongest effects of "global climate change has been the advancement of spring at high northern latitudes [...] where temperatures are rising nearly two to three times faster than the global average" (P), and that migratory birds adjust their trips' schedule to their breeding territories in response to the changes in local climate. 

But, dear reader, this dumb blog has an alternative explanation for the earlier migration's timing of American robins. And a cartoon to explain it.

American robins discuss about smart early departures (by @sciencemug)

[American robin pic by Mark Nenadov is under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license (source: Wikimedia Commons); adapted by @sciencemug]

Now, the following ones hare just for fun...

Batman and Robin meme 1 about American robins' earlier migration's timing (by @sciencemug)

[Batman and Robin meme pic by ap. is under Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0) license (source: flickr); adapted by @sciencemug]

Batman and Robin meme 2 about American robins' earlier migration's timing (by @sciencemug)

[Batman and Robin meme pic by ap. is under Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0) license (source: flickr); adapted by @sciencemug]

Paper (P)

Oliver, R.Y., Mahoney, P.J., Gurarie, E., Krikun, N., Weeks, B.C., Hebblewhite, M., Liston, G., and Boelman, N. (2020). Behavioral responses to spring snow conditions contribute to long-term shift in migration phenology in American robins. Environ. Res. Lett. 15, 045003.

THE TRUE REASON WHY WOODPECKERS DON'T SUFFER BRAIN INJURY!

Sooo, dear reader, woodpeckers hit trees "up to 20 Hz with speeds up to 7 m/s , undergoing decelerations up to 1200g" (see).

Let's break these numbers down, ok?

20 Hz means that those birds hit the tree up to 20 times per second: an AK-47 - aka Kalashnikov - shoots 10 rounds per second, the Giant Hummingbird's wings beat rate is of 10-15 per second (see).
7m/s means that those birds' head hits the tree at a speed up to 25.2km/h (or 15.5mph). Not much? Well, dear human reader, try to run at your full speed into a tree and see how you like it... Oh, and consider also this: when Usain Bolt smashed the 100 meters world record in 2009 with his astonishing 9.58 seconds, well, he ran at 37.6km/h (23,4mph).
As for the 1200g deceleration, well, just think of this: when astronauts take off for space, they suffer an acceleration of about 3.2g, and on reentry the deceleration is about 1.4g (see), meaning that some of the fittest human beings in the world, while performing one of the most stressful procedure of 'em all, endure a deceleration 857 times lower than the one experimented by woodpeckers' head on a daily basis.

In spite of that, though, this birds' brain doesn't become like a triumph of mashed potatoes.

How come?

Well, researchers say (P) that it depends, among other things, on the fact that woodpeckers skull bones are stiffer than those of other birds, as they've "small but uniform level of closed porosity, a higher degree of mineralization, and a higher cortical to skull bone ratio" (P). Moreover, woodpeckers have an "unusual shape of the elongated tongue, also called the hyoid apparatus" which probably helps in absorbing the impacts energy (P).

But this dumb blog has a much simpler and more elegant explanation for all of this: see the following cartoon.

Woodpeckers' brain secret (by @sciencemug)

[Woodpecker free pic by Bill Pennell (source: Unplash); adapted by @sciencemug]

Wanna see a cool slow-motion vid of a woodpecker banging its beak+head onto a tree? Check this out!


Paper (P)

Jung, J.-Y., Pissarenko, A., Yaraghi, N.A., Naleway, S.E., Kisailus, D., Meyers, M.A., and McKittrick, J. (2018). A comparative analysis of the avian skull: Woodpeckers and chickens. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials 84, 273–280.