WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: How Do Starling Murmurations Work?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, BrainStuff. Lauren

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<v Speaker 1>Vogelbaum here with another classic episode for you. In this one,

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<v Speaker 1>we dive into the startling simplicity behind the complex flight

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<v Speaker 1>displays of groups of starlings. They're so impressive that researchers

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<v Speaker 1>are using them to help power other complicated processes. Hey, BrainStuff.

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<v Speaker 1>Lauren Vogelbaum here. Individually, a European starling is a common blackbird.

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<v Speaker 1>That's it. Starlings are short and thick with dark feathers

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<v Speaker 1>and long pointy bills. If you live in North America

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<v Speaker 1>or Europe, you've seen them, though birdwatchers have spotted them

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<v Speaker 1>throughout most of the world. More than 200 million live

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<v Speaker 1>here in North America alone, singing their chirpy songs and

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<v Speaker 1>being to many backyard growers and full-time farmers a bit

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<v Speaker 1>on the pesty side. Collectively, though, starlings transform into something

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<v Speaker 1>else entirely. Together, in flight, in mesmerizing flocks that sometimes

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<v Speaker 1>number in the hundreds of thousands, they are a breath-stealing wonder,

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<v Speaker 1>a pulsating, swooping, harmonized whole, seemingly defying the laws of

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<v Speaker 1>nature while defining nature itself. To watch a murmuration of

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<v Speaker 1>starlings in midair— that' s what the flocking behavior is called, a

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<v Speaker 1>murmuration— is to experience firsthand the power and mystery of the

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<v Speaker 1>natural world. We spoke with Mario Pessendorfer, a postdoctoral associate

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<v Speaker 1>at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who's also a research

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<v Speaker 1>associate at the Smithsonian's Migratory Bird Center. He said, I

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<v Speaker 1>think that the core feeling is a sense of awe.

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<v Speaker 1>The spatial scale of something that's moving very rapidly, which

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<v Speaker 1>we are utterly unable to do, and the visual patterning

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<v Speaker 1>that occurs when a lot of individuals are doing the

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<v Speaker 1>same thing really mesmerizes us. Memorations spark curiosity. And they

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<v Speaker 1>spark scientists like Pessendorfer to figure out how swarming animals,

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<v Speaker 1>like bees and birds and fish, can better our own lives.

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<v Speaker 1>In the 1930s, famed ornithologist Edmund Sellis suggested that birds

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<v Speaker 1>moving in murmurations were using some sort of telepathy to

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<v Speaker 1>transmit their flying intentions. He wrote in his book, Thought

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<v Speaker 1>Transference or What in Birds, they must think collectively all

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<v Speaker 1>at the same time, a flash out of so many brains.

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<v Speaker 1>As the years wore on, we found out that that's

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<v Speaker 1>not quite it. In the 1950s, scientists studying insects and

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<v Speaker 1>fish and other collective animal behavior posited that group movement

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<v Speaker 1>is more of a stunningly fast response to others in

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<v Speaker 1>the flock or school or swarm rather than some innate

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<v Speaker 1>mind-reading ability or a command from a group leader. The

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<v Speaker 1>authors of a 2015 paper published in the journal Proceedings

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<v Speaker 1>of the National Academy of Sciences wrote, It's the rapid

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<v Speaker 1>transmission of local behavior response to neighbors that enables such

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<v Speaker 1>startling synchronicity. Piesendorfer said, there's two ways that you can

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<v Speaker 1>elicit large group behavior. You can have the top-down control

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<v Speaker 1>where you have some kind of leadership or some kind

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<v Speaker 1>of top-down mechanism. Think of a rock show. You have

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<v Speaker 1>the rock star in the front and he starts clapping

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<v Speaker 1>his hands and the whole stadium starts clapping. But these

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<v Speaker 1>murmurations are actually self-organized, meaning that it's the individual's little

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<v Speaker 1>behavioral rules that make it scale up to the large group.

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<v Speaker 1>In order to understand this behavior, we have to go

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<v Speaker 1>from the local scale, what the individual is doing, what

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<v Speaker 1>are the rules that the individual is following, to the

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<v Speaker 1>global scale, what is the outcome? In 2013, a mechanical

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<v Speaker 1>and aerospace engineer and her team from Princeton collaborated with

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<v Speaker 1>physicists in Italy to study murmurations. Naomi Leonard, the Princeton engineer,

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<v Speaker 1>said back then, In a flock with 1,200 birds, it's

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<v Speaker 1>clear that not every bird will be able to keep

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<v Speaker 1>track of the other 1,199 birds. So an important question is,

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<v Speaker 1>who is keeping track of whom? The Italian physicists used

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<v Speaker 1>more than 400 photos from several videos to find out,

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<v Speaker 1>plotting the position and speed of birds as they flocked.

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<v Speaker 1>From that, they built a mathematical model that identified the

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<v Speaker 1>optimal number of flockmates for each bird to track. It

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<v Speaker 1>turns out the magic number is seven. Each bird keeps

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<v Speaker 1>tabs on its seven closest neighbors and ignores all else.

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<v Speaker 1>Considering all these little groups of seven touch on other

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<v Speaker 1>individuals and groups of seven, twists and turns quickly spread,

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<v Speaker 1>and from that a whole murmuration moves. Though it looks

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<v Speaker 1>coordinated on a large scale, the individual birds are concerned

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<v Speaker 1>with only three aspects of their flight and the flight

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<v Speaker 1>of those around them. These factors have been described in

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<v Speaker 1>several ways, but they boil down similarly. They are an

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<v Speaker 1>attraction zone, an area where you're going to move toward

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<v Speaker 1>the next bird over, a repulsion zone, an area where

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<v Speaker 1>you don't fly because you'll interfere with another bird and

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<v Speaker 1>you'll both fall, and angular alignment, meaning that you're following

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<v Speaker 1>a neighboring bird's directional movement. Pessendorfer said, depending on how

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<v Speaker 1>you change those three parameters, you can get everything from

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<v Speaker 1>those barrel-looking baseballs that you get in ocean fish to

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<v Speaker 1>loose-looking insect swarms to highly, highly organized fish swarms and murmurations.

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<v Speaker 1>all in those three little parameters. Scientists believe these birds

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<v Speaker 1>flock in the first place to confuse and discourage predators

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<v Speaker 1>through their sheer numbers, with the noise such a flock

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<v Speaker 1>makes and, of course, its motion. Some communication between birds

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<v Speaker 1>may be happening too in murmurations, say pointing out good

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<v Speaker 1>food sources, or the birds may simply be keeping warm.

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<v Speaker 1>What may be most stunning to mere humans is that

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<v Speaker 1>these birds react so quickly and do so in such synchronization,

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<v Speaker 1>if not immediately, within a couple flaps of a bird's wings.

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<v Speaker 1>They move almost as one in a type of lockstep or,

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<v Speaker 1>as it were, block flap. But how? Birds can take

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<v Speaker 1>in certain information around them and process it much more

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<v Speaker 1>quickly than humans. They see faster than we do. They

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<v Speaker 1>basically have a higher frame rate. Back in 1986, Craig Reynolds,

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<v Speaker 1>an MIT-trained computer scientist, built computer models of bird flocking

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<v Speaker 1>and fish schooling in something he called Boyds. These programs

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<v Speaker 1>provided the basis for lifelike animation in movies, initially and

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<v Speaker 1>notably A Swarm of Bats in the 1992 Tim Burton

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<v Speaker 1>film Batman Returns. In applications to real life, the ability

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<v Speaker 1>to understand the behavioral movements of large groups of starlings

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<v Speaker 1>or bats or bees or whatever, and to program swarms

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<v Speaker 1>of robots into making similar movements has amazing possibilities. This

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<v Speaker 1>is called biomimicry or biomimetics. An example, Las Cumbres Observatory

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<v Speaker 1>has 22 robotic telescopes on seven sites around the world

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<v Speaker 1>that coordinate with each other to function as one big telescope.

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<v Speaker 1>From the LCO website, It's called time-domain astronomy, which means

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<v Speaker 1>that we can continually watch phenomena in space as they change.

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<v Speaker 1>When we get to see the big picture as it unfolds,

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<v Speaker 1>we're able to learn more, learn it faster, and dramatically

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<v Speaker 1>increase our understanding of the forces that drive the universe.

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<v Speaker 1>Another example, the emerging field of swarm robotics uses information

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<v Speaker 1>gleaned from the study of starlings that could, according to

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<v Speaker 1>the Wyss Institute at Harvard, quote, enable new approaches for

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<v Speaker 1>search and rescue missions, construction efforts, environmental remediation, and medical applications.

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<v Speaker 1>Swarm robotics could also have use in military applications like

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<v Speaker 1>micro drones released from fighter aircraft. A swarm of self-driving

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<v Speaker 1>cars working together could help reduce or eliminate traffic jams,

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<v Speaker 1>all from watching, studying, learning, and building on the wondrous

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<v Speaker 1>flocking of this simple bird. Piesendorfer said, As humans who

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<v Speaker 1>have very complicated decision-making processes, we're not used to looking

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<v Speaker 1>at simple decision-making processes that scale up to what looks

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<v Speaker 1>like complex behavior. These models help us understand these types

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<v Speaker 1>of patterns. Today's episode is based on the article, The

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<v Speaker 1>Secrets and Science Behind Starling Murmurations, on HowStuffWorks.com, written by

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<v Speaker 1>John Donovan. BrainStep is a production of iHeart Podcasts in

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<v Speaker 1>partnership with HowStuffWorks.com and is produced by Tyler Klang. For

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<v Speaker 1>more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.