30 thoughts on “I for one welcome our new avian overlords”

          2. (Forgot to point out that the illustrator of the kid’s book I linked totally screwed up by using a Rainbow Lorikeet Trichoglossus haematodus instead.)

  5. What an exciting intro to more of wonderful nature!

    Remember how eyes were rooted back to just two cells, one photosensitive and one shadowing to see direction of light, a few years back? [ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081119140705.htm ]

    Then there was the discovery last year of a unicellular eye construction in unicellular warnoviid plankton, using the mitochondria organelle as lens.
    [ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150701133348.htm ]

    And now spherical cyanobacteria has been shown to beat both, their bodies as lens for the “screen” of their membranes to form images and decide where to go!

    “In fact, because some amount of light is hitting the cell from all around, the team says that each microbe will have a “360-degree image” of its surroundings focused on the inside of its cell membrane.

    That image is very fuzzy – with a resolution of about 21 degrees, compared to the 0.02-degree precision of our eyes – but it is enough for photoreceptor molecules, embedded in the cell membrane, to guide the bug’s movement.

    For example, when the researchers shone two separate lights at the cells, they saw two focused bright spots and the bacteria appeared to integrate the information, heading off in an intermediate direction.”

    [ http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35502310 ]

    I especially recommend the video, where a laser is used to test the theory in a very … visual … way.

    As a side note, since this is WEIT:

    I wonder where the creationist argument of eye complexity will go now!? One cell, no special functionality except receptors studding a membrane, functional vision in all directions – without a nervous system.

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    2. I wonder where the creationist argument of eye complexity will go now!? One cell, no special functionality except receptors studding a membrane, functional vision in all directions – without a nervous system.

      Unless I miss my guess, it will go, “ah, but where did the membrane and the receptors come from??”

      And of course, as we all know (thank you, Robin Ince), their answer is Magic Man done it.

      Reply

  8. I believe that the Australian Aboriginals used this technique to flush out animals. As far as I recall this changed the flora so much over 10s of thousands of years to the point it actually needs bushfires every so often for seed pods to open and create rich fertilizer to germinate
    The interesting question is, did the Aborigines learn it from the birds or the birds from them.

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  10. I read the first sentence of the newspaper article and was amazed at the level of their technology – never saw hawks frantically rubbing two sticks together. Then I read the title and normal service resumed….spreading a fire is so much more plausible than starting one.

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    1. In his novel Marooned in Realtime, Vernor Vinge has the descendants of California condors, millions of years hence, dropping flints onto pyrite from a height in order to strike sparks and start grass fires.

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  12. One one hand I hope this is true, and on the other I want fewer Oz fires.
    I note in the last para there is no video evidence of the reports.

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  16. Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it’s time for our viewers to crack each other’s heads open and feast on the goo inside?

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