During the Cretaceous new lineages of mammals and birds were beginning to appear along with the flowering plants.
lower class in Pompeiiuniversity of Cincinnati archaeologists are turning up discoveries in the famed Roman city of Pompeii that are wiping out the historic perceptions of how the Romans dined with the rich enjoying delicacies such as flamingos
resources necessary for the production of the birds will also be wasted, including  105 billion gallons of water (that's enough to supply New york city...
the sheep could prove extremely useful in making sure vegetation doesn â¢t grow into habitats for birds
Cyber-rain, Rain Bird & Hydropoint all offer smart sprinkler systems, which take into account plant type and use weather data
Smithsonian tracks bird strikes for military, airline industrydr. Carla Dove using a comparison microscope to study feather structure in the Birds Division at the Museum of Natural history.
Photo: Chip Clark When I visited the Feather Identification Lab at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural history,
Dr. Carla Dove pulled out a stack of manila folders thicker than a phone book, filled with reports of bird strikes from around the world.
Each included a form and a Ziploc bag. Some bags contained whole feathers, others contained specimens that looked liked specks of dirt,
but were in fact bird remains. These are all from last week, Dove said. The lab--the world only full-time department that studies bird strikes--was created in the 1960s, by Dove predecessor
Roxie Laybourne. Working for Laybourne, Dove was so enthusiastic about the field that she went to graduate school and studied environmental science and public policy,
with a focus on the microstructure of feathers. It didn t take her long to realize that the work performed in this little lab is a big help to the military, the aviation industry and of course, the birds.
They started to realize if we know the birds on the airfield, Dove said, they can change the habitat.
Not only can bird strikes threaten the safety of a flight, but they can cause millions of dollars in damage to the aircraft.
So the Federal Aviation Administration and the military fund the Smithsonian lab in order to learn more about the strikes
and how to prevent them. The two groups have separate databases where Dove team logs each incident.
Commercial airlines report strikes on a voluntary basis; for the military, it mandatory. What we do know about strikes is that most happen at takeoff and landing, typically at the engine,
but sometimes at the windshield or even the plane wheel well. The culprit is usually a bird,
but Dove reports have included also bats, deer and â on overseas U s. military bases â animals including goats and pigs.
Strikes also happen at all altitudes; the record for the highest strike goes to a Griffon vulture flying over Africa.
But there a lot that we don t know when a strike occurs: the species, whether it was more than one species,
and whether it was a resident or visitor bird. In fact pilots don t necessarily know that a strike even happens;
and mailed to Dove and her three colleagues. If we have a feather, we can take it out to the collection the 150-year-old Smithsonian bird collection,
identify it and then email the field person with the ID, Dove says. If it just blood or tissue, we send it to the DNA lab
and can usually get the DNA sequence within a week. If we can t do that â sometimes it in really bad shape after being in the engine â we ll look at the microscopic characters in the fluffy down.
whether it a duck or a bird. Carla Dove, Nancy Rotzel and Marcy Heacker use the museum bird collection to identify birds that are involved in bird strikes.
Photo: James Diloreto Once the bird is identified, the information is entered into a database and sent to the airfield where the strike occurred.
This information helps biologists build airfield habitats that are unfriendly to the types of birds causing problems.
If you let the grass grow, that will deter some birds, Dove said. But that may not work at another airfield.
You might have long grasses that attract mice and a bird that eats mice. You have to know how to manage it.
Dove and her team worked on the remains of the geese from the 2009 US AIRWAYS landing in the Hudson river.
In fact they re still working on it, trying to determine from DNA samples exactly how many geese hit the plane.
The remains of the geese were hand-delivered to the Smithsonian within two days of the accident,
and determine there were at least one or two birds, eight pounds each, from a migratory population.
Dove said. It like a detective story. With this incident the public became more aware of the danger that birds can pose to aviation safety.
But when wildlife biologists and the U s. Department of agriculture killed nearly 400 geese this summer because they lived in Brooklyn Prospect Park â too close to New york La Guardia
I asked Dove, who goes birding in her spare time, what she thought about the Prospect Park geese.
I love birds, but when it comes to the airports, they have got to control these geese,
Airplane engines â which go through bird tests â are designed to handle strikes with certain weights of birds
typically four pounds, according to Dove. The 777 is certified for eight pounds, but only one bird, she said, not four.
How much would it cost to design an engine for eight-pound birds? How heavy would it be?
There are all questions that are being asked. In the meantime, the number of eight-pound geese have grown. Strike reports have increased dramatically,
but Dove isn't sure if that largely because more airfields are reporting, or because there are more strikes.
Out of 10,000 species of birds, only about 350 to 400 are involved in strikes, but it can still be tricky to identify them.
In her office, Dove has a comparison microscope, where she can put a known sample next to an unknown sample,
we know it a waterfowl, she tells me, as I peer into the scope. It took
So what does Dove do when she boards a commercial jet? Naturally: We re always looking out the window for birds,
she said. But we feel safe because of the people on the field who are working to make it safer
include mandates such as working with the seasons, no artificial ingredients, no antibiotics for animals, cage free birds and no GMO ingredients or hormones.
stop for tea on the plaza near the Chinese pagoda, feed the ducks on the lake,
Lincoln Park is another Chicago institution, with a lakefront theatre, a zoo, a bird sanctuary, and a lagoon with paddleboats.
Spy black swans, and breathe in the scent of eucalyptus trees. Best Time to Visit: Spring for the sight of dozens of brides in long flowing white dresses;
Penguin and Macmillan, maintain that they did not collude on e-book pricing. This essentially means that Hachette,
The two that are fighting it, Mcmillan and Penguin, their executives have made very clear statements,
So Random House and the two publishers that haven t settled, Penguin and Mcmillan, are at least for the moment,
and chickens believe the energy efficient lighting has calmed the birds and helped them gain more weight.
transportation and logistics Transportation and loading can be as much as 40 percent of the total delivered pellet cost, according to Brent Mahana of Cooper/Consolidated,
Save a bird: Turn off a light
To cut fire risk, San francisco airport hires 400 goatsshrubs and small trees around airports could become fire hazards for nearby homes
A similar group hunted wild boar in Italy, scraped reindeer lichen off rocks in Lapland, made fruitless attempts to net ducks in Japan,
Jennings and JP Mcmahon served pigeon on bricks from Middleton Place the plantation where everybody was staying
000 demonstration project funded by the U s. Energy department, the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructure and the BIRD Foundation.
P-Planter developer Brent Bucknum wrote to tell me the urinal does, in fact, meet ADA dimension requirements and that he is working with community groups in SF
D c. How samara fly In a manner similar to insects, hummingbirds and bats, maple seeds fly by creating a vortex over the leading edge of the wing.
from chirping birds to rustling trees, can tell humans a lot about the world --if they listen.
We no longer listen to the birds or other critters. What are we missing when we don't hear these natural sounds?
because we have night hawks flying overhead. They're a key species that makes sounds at night in Midwestern urban areas.
You only have a few birds singing. But you hear something in the background and you can't quite detect what it is.
Listen to the birds. Listen to the water, if you have a stream nearby. Try to observe things that you've never listened to before.
For example, the production and transport involved in a cup of coffee impacts myriad species, from invertebrates to birds to fish.
There are two spiders up there oegolden orb weavers, native to southern parts of the United states. Theyre on the Space station, coming back on the 135 shuttle.
Take a gander at recent articles about algae right here on Smartplanet: Video: Turning algae into oil the NASA way Scientists create high-capacity batteries from algae Pressure-cooking method makes an algae-based biofuel Plane takes first flight on 100
Building for the birds and the bees and batsbuildings are designed usually to house people, but a few recent examples provide shelter and protection for the fuzzier fellow citizens of planet Earth.
China While guidelines for designs that don't harm birds have been published in the US, a library in China takes the idea one step further.
The Liyuan Library by architect Li Xiaodong encourages birds to build nests on its structure. The exterior is clad with more than 400,000 locally sourced sticks of firewood
which Li hopes will attract birds that will contribute mud and droppings to help plant-life grow.
birds and even bats are ecologically important since they prey on pests, disperse seeds, and pollinate plants.
Of course, there are native animals that are edible too (such as kangaroos, crocodiles and emus), but Weatherhead prefers to educate us on the wonders of Australias native flora world.
If all of that oil were sold at current Brent benchmark prices (it wouldn't be but just as a point of reference), that's $115 million a day in lost revenue, just to make fresh water.
Flamingoes really do turn pink from eating shrimp(#11. Human brains do in fact weigh about three pounds(#55.
maybe Angry Birds is good but something medical might actually change the world. From NPR and Wired.
But the bird won't go back and find every cache, so some seeds will either become new oak trees or food for other animals.
For example, bees, birds and some bats might all visit the same flower for nectar, but at different times of the day and year.
USDA spokesman Caleb Weaver was quoted in The Los angeles times as saying that, in so many words, the decision on GM seeds is hardly final:
Flanner first started Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in 2009, the first of its kind, and was inspired later to try his methods in a bigger venue.
and effort, says Lark Mason, a Chinese antiques expert who runs his own auction house and appears regularly on Antiques Roadshow.
For The Bird Tree, which is 52 feet tall and the biggest exhibit that has been done,
The eagle is our brother, the water in the river is the blood of our ancestors.'
Smartplanet spoke with Dr. Richard Webby, Director of the World health organization Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds at St jude Children's Research Hospital.
as compared to most other avian viruses, to transmit. Was there any overt indication that this strain of flu was more of a risk?
There are subtle differences between the avian host cell and the human host cell in terms of what viruses bind to.
So there are signatures that avian viruses have that are associated with binding to those avian cells.
This virus is primarily avian still but it did have some signatures that we associate with mammalian virus. Where does this virus rank among the flu viruses we know about already?
That is why we continue to monitor this in the bird populations, control it and reduce the number of human infections.
So with the H5n1 you see a lot of disease in your birds and you know the virus is there.
You have to be swabbing these birds regularly to find it. That obviously makes it harder to control.
With the H5 you eventually see sick birds. With the H7 they do not get sick at all.
There is still a question with these other more classical avian types like the H5 and H7.
Radiation reminds me of the albatross: It performs wondrous things and it generally doesn't harm you,
The bird made famous in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner can fly incredible distances with a single flap of the wings.
He mentioned a second model community, Poplar Grove, outside Charleston, S. C. Through a partnership with Ducks Unlimited
keeping in mind what within the forest the songbirds, the wildlife. Every forest is different So
Co-author Brian Otis, a UW assistant professor of electrical engineering, led the development of a boost converter,
"Otis said. To solve this problem Otis'team built a clock that runs continuously on 1 nanowatt,
about a thousandth the power required to run a wristwatch, and when turned on operates at 350 millivolts, about a quarter the voltage in an AA battery.
Battery cage battle Nearly all eggs in the United states come from large facilities where hens are kept in small pens called battery cages.
because the birds have little room to move and can get caught and injured in the cages metal wires.
the voters made it clear that they wanted changes in the hen habitat, "she says."
JS West became the first company in the United states to install so-called oeenriched cages for its hens.
The birds get twice as much space as in the old battery cages. And the enriched cages have perches,
and nesting boxes where the hens lay their eggs. Jill Benson company, JS West, became the first in the United states to install enriched cages.
While she doesn't think the hens were unhappy in the old cages Benson she says they definitely like the new cages. oewhat was a surprise is that the hens are producing just as many eggs, if not more,
and they re living better. In fact, there less mortality. The company has installed even live webcams so the public can see the hens in the new cages in real time.
Now the humane society is pushing for a federal law that would require these cages nationwide. oethe laws
Hens peck each other less in smaller cages, for example. And since enriched cages cost more they push up the cost of eggs.
allowed pest-eating bugs and birds to flourish. After eight years, Liebman and Davis used eight times less herbicide in the three-and four-year rotations than in the conventional plot,
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