Tag: birds

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How can a swarm swarm? — What is biophysics? #13

Herds of wildebeest, swarms of bees, and schools of fish all provide mesmerizing displays of coordinated motion. Fish, birds, and other animals numbering even in the millions can act as one not through centralized control, but through local actions and decisions, as each individual assesses the speed and orientation of its neighbors. This self-organization is … Continue reading How can a swarm swarm? — What is biophysics? #13

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The creation of the birds

In general, there’s little or no correlation between the length of a eukaryotic organism’s genome and any other “obvious” characteristics, such as the creature’s overall size. Humans have a genome of about 3.4 billion base pairs; those of mice and giraffes are a bit smaller (2.7 billion base pairs), for example, and orangutans’ and guinea … Continue reading The creation of the birds