The Tailor Bird Uses Its Beak as a Needle to Literally Stitch Up Its Nest
As children, we learn that birds build their nests out of twigs and dry grass, but the truth is that bird nest architecture varies greatly, as demonstrated by the tiny Tailor Bird, which uses as its beak as a needle to stitch a protective nest out of leaves. Orthotomus sutorius, or the Common Tailor Bird, […]
How the World’s Largest Signature Is Used by NASA to Analyze Satellite Imagery
In the late 1990’s, when a Texas farmer decided to clear up some new grazing land for his cattle by leaving up just enough trees to spell his name in giant letters, he probably never imagined that his signature would one day be used by NASA to evaluate the quality of their satellite cameras. Jimmie […]
Japan’s Ingenious Solution to Help Turtles Cross Train Tracks
Turtles may be cute, but they are also slow and clumsy, which doesn’t really help them when they are trying to cross train tracks. Luckily, for the turtles in Japan’s Hyōgo Prefecture, railway operators and a local aquarium teamed up to find a solution. Between 2002 and 2014, disruptions of train operation caused by turtles […]