sky rats sewer eagles gutter falcons
millions of them each one packing up to
sixteen thousand times a day defecating
up to 25 pounds a year decorating our
cars our statues even us
it seems they’re always getting in the
way but take another look
pigeons are one of nature’s most
successful creatures thriving in almost
every city in town wherever we are and
pigeons are exceptional navigators
always finding their nests across the
city or the continent it’s an internal
Drive scientists call homing drop a
pigeon almost anywhere even thousands of
miles away and they’ll successfully find
their way home in ancient times when
something absolutely positively had to
get there tie it to a pigeon in wartime
pigeon messengers were fast dependable
and nearly impossible to intercept 95%
of pigeons used in combat successfully
delivered their message more reliable
than radios on the battlefield a world
war one pigeon named Jeremy took enemy
fire in his chest and lost a leg
he still flew to headquarters saving
soldiers trapped behind enemy lines
joining the ranks of over 30 pigeons
awarded medals of valor during wartime
one key to a pigeon messengers success
speed to send a message 50 miles a
world-class runner needs almost five
hours and a horse almost two hours
but a pigeon less than 60 minutes
sorting accessing the vast amounts of
data they’re bombarded with demands
another hidden power memory research at
Tufts University in Massachusetts aims
to discover just how good pidgin memory
is psychologist bob cook’s been working
with one special pidgin for eight years
this is Linus the master of memory the
pidgin of particulars knows up to a
thousand images so this is the testing
chamber that we use to study the
intelligence of pigeons that inside the
chamber is a touch screen that the
pigeon pecks out to let us know what
he’s doing two food trays flank a
touchscreen video display each picture
releases food into one of the trays
both will illuminate but Linus must
remember which tray is assigned to which
picture and he reliably does for over a
thousand images remembering to turn
right or left depending on the picture
their remarkable vision machines their
remarkable memory machines they do this
all with a brain that’s really not much
bigger than a thumb
millions of them each one packing up to
sixteen thousand times a day defecating
up to 25 pounds a year decorating our
cars our statues even us
it seems they’re always getting in the
way but take another look
pigeons are one of nature’s most
successful creatures thriving in almost
every city in town wherever we are and
pigeons are exceptional navigators
always finding their nests across the
city or the continent it’s an internal
Drive scientists call homing drop a
pigeon almost anywhere even thousands of
miles away and they’ll successfully find
their way home in ancient times when
something absolutely positively had to
get there tie it to a pigeon in wartime
pigeon messengers were fast dependable
and nearly impossible to intercept 95%
of pigeons used in combat successfully
delivered their message more reliable
than radios on the battlefield a world
war one pigeon named Jeremy took enemy
fire in his chest and lost a leg
he still flew to headquarters saving
soldiers trapped behind enemy lines
joining the ranks of over 30 pigeons
awarded medals of valor during wartime
one key to a pigeon messengers success
speed to send a message 50 miles a
world-class runner needs almost five
hours and a horse almost two hours
but a pigeon less than 60 minutes
sorting accessing the vast amounts of
data they’re bombarded with demands
another hidden power memory research at
Tufts University in Massachusetts aims
to discover just how good pidgin memory
is psychologist bob cook’s been working
with one special pidgin for eight years
this is Linus the master of memory the
pidgin of particulars knows up to a
thousand images so this is the testing
chamber that we use to study the
intelligence of pigeons that inside the
chamber is a touch screen that the
pigeon pecks out to let us know what
he’s doing two food trays flank a
touchscreen video display each picture
releases food into one of the trays
both will illuminate but Linus must
remember which tray is assigned to which
picture and he reliably does for over a
thousand images remembering to turn
right or left depending on the picture
their remarkable vision machines their
remarkable memory machines they do this
all with a brain that’s really not much
bigger than a thumb
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