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Female birds -- acting just like the guys -- become sexual show-offs in...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Female birds in species that breed in groups can find themselves under pressure to sexually show off and evolve the same kinds of embellishments - like fanciful tail feathers or...

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Biologist Shows Female Birds of a Feather Compete Together

(PhysOrg.com) -- With its flamboyantly decorated plumage, the peacock is a classic example of how males among many bird species are more visually eye-catching than their female partners. But new...

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Starling flocks fly like a single entity (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- An animal group such as a school of fish or a flock of starlings can seem like a single entity governed by a collective mind. A new mathematical analysis of flight dynamics in flocks...

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Hawks to patrol Singapore shopping district: report

Businesses along Singapore's famous Orchard Road shopping street plan to deploy trained hawks to scare off thousands of birds whose droppings rain down on pedestrians' heads, a report said Wednesday.

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New theory shows that neither birth nor death stops a flock

Neither births nor deaths stop the flocking of organisms. They just keep moving, says theoretical physicist John J. Toner of the University of Oregon. The notion, he says, has implications in biology...

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Study finds European starlings flocking patterns similar to metals being...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists and amateur enthusiasts alike have long been fascinated by the abilities of some groups of animals to move in lockstep with one another, most specifically with schools of...

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Helping family is key for social birds

(Phys.org) -- Social birds that forgo breeding to help to raise the offspring of other group members are far more likely care for their own close relatives than for more distant kin, a new study has...

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Light-and-sound attacks used against Rome's starlings

Tired of bird droppings on the city's most famous monuments, local authorities in Rome are resorting to unusual measures to try and scare off a million starlings that migrate to the Eternal City every...

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Birds of a feather... track seven neighbors to flock together

Watching a flock of thousands of starlings take to the sky is a spectacular sight. As the flock changes direction, it looks like a formation of suspended iron filings guided by an invisible magnet in...

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Bird's playlist could signal mental strengths and weaknesses

Having the biggest playlist doesn't make a male songbird the brainiest of the bunch, a new study shows.

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Why animals compare the present with the past

Humans, like other animals, compare things. We care not only how well off we are, but whether we are better or worse off than others around us, or than we were last year. New research by scientists at...

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African starlings: Dashing darlings of the bird world in more ways than one

It's not going to happen while you're peering through your binoculars, but African glossy starlings change color more than 10 times faster than their ancestors and even their modern relatives,...

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Birds of a feather create new species together—and here's how

Starlings have an image problem in Australia. These drab invaders are best known as pests of orchards and shopping centres. If you take a trip to see their African relatives though, you'll find...

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Early stress in starlings found to lead to faster aging

(Phys.org) —A combined team of researchers from Newcastle University and the University of Glasgow, both in the U.K. has found that stress in young starlings can lead to shortened telomeres—which prior...

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Flocks of starlings ride the wave to escape

Why does it seem as if a dark band ripples through a flock of European starlings that are steering clear of a falcon or a hawk? It all lies in the birds' ability to quickly and repeatedly dip to one...

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Boston airport testing radar to avoid avian accidents

Airports have grappled with the issue of sharing the sky with members of the avian family for decades. Most recently, US Airways Flight 1549 was forced to make a water landing in the Hudson River off...

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200,000 UK homes 'may become uninsurable' over flood risk

Some 200,000 British homes could become uninsurable from next year due to flood risks unless a deal is struck with the government, insurers said Monday, as yet more rain teemed down on much of the...

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Researchers use wave theories to explain bird flock size properties

(Phys.org)—An international team of researchers studying starling flock sizes in Rome has found that flocks of different sizes behave differently due to wave properties similar to fluids. In their...

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Songbirds have a thing for patterns

You might think that young children would first learn to recognize sounds and then learn how those categories of sounds fit together into words. But that isn't how it works. Rather, kids learn sounds...

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Genetic changes in birds could throw light on human mitochondrial diseases

Deakin University and UNSW Australia researchers have made a rare observation of rapid evolution in action in the wild, documenting the spread of a newly arisen genetic mutation in invasive starlings,...

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