January 26, 2023

Wanted (by Scientists): Dead Birds and Bats, Felled by Renewables (Undark)

Undark: Wanted (by Scientists): Dead Birds and Bats, Felled by Renewables. “[Todd] Katzner, [Mark] Davis, and other biologists are working with the renewable energy industry to create a nationwide repository of dead birds and bats killed at wind and solar facilities. The bodies hold clues about how the animals lived and died, and could help scientists and project operators understand how to reduce the environmental impact of clean energy installations, Davis said.”

Research & Opinion 0
September 1, 2022

Tech Xplore: New algorithm based on the behavior of gulls improves edge computing

Tech Xplore: New algorithm based on the behavior of gulls improves edge computing. “The seagull algorithm encodes the migratory and attack behavior of gulls in such a way that it can be used to solve problems such as the assigning and routing of computational resources. The use of the simulated annealing algorithm in conjunction with the seagull algorithm will help the system avoid the local maximum and premature convergence problems, which are often the bane of other approaches to similar problems.” Not clear on edge computing? IBM has an overview.

Uncategorized 0
July 28, 2022

Newswise: New Course Helps Awaken Curiosity About Nature

Newswise: New Course Helps Awaken Curiosity About Nature. “Adults who want to connect kids with nature now have some expert guidance, thanks to a new online course from Bird Academy, the e-learning arm of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. ‘Let’s Go Outside: How to Connect Kids with Birds and Nature,’ contains six lessons with dozens of field-tested activities to reduce screen time for kids and boost their curiosity about the natural world.”

New Resources 0
July 4, 2022

USDA: Working Lands for Wildlife Launches Literature Gateway

USDA: Working Lands for Wildlife Launches Literature Gateway. “USDA just launched a new research and visualization tool that summarizes published scientific research on bird species-vegetation relationships in the Eastern and Boreal Forests of North America. The tool, Literature Gateway: A Systematic Map of Bird-Vegetation Relationships in Eastern and Boreal Forests, can be used to identify science-need gaps and guide habitat restoration and forest management practices on the ground.”

New Resources 0
June 26, 2022

MakeUseOf: Identify Bird Sounds With BirdNET-Pi on Raspberry Pi

MakeUseOf: Identify Bird Sounds With BirdNET-Pi on Raspberry Pi. “You may well have seen various bird species in your backyard or garden, but there may well be many more roosting nearby that you have only heard. To identify them, you don’t need to be an expert in ornithology, however: all that’s required is a Raspberry Pi equipped with a mic and the BirdNET-Pi software.”

Useful Stuff 0
May 19, 2022

Poll the Audience: Using Data From Citizen Science to Keep Wild Birds in Flight (Utah State University)

Utah State University: Poll the Audience: Using Data From Citizen Science to Keep Wild Birds in Flight. “Using the eyes and ears of public volunteers can stretch the reach of science, according to a new analysis from Erica Stuber from the Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center. Stuber and a team of researchers examined the accuracy of information produced by citizen science apps for monitoring bird populations. They compared publicly-produced data with officially tracked numbers from monitoring programs and found that, with some refinement, data from citizen scientists could offer a lot of utility for researchers.”

Research & Opinion 0
May 5, 2022

Lincoln Journal-Star: New website a guide to Nebraska birding

Lincoln Journal-Star: New website a guide to Nebraska birding . “With the diversity of birds and habitats in the state, it can be overwhelming trying to decide where to go birding. The Nebraska Birding Guide provides descriptions for 80 locations that offer great birding opportunities. Details are provided for each site, including habitat information, birds to observe, trails to explore, amenities, fees and more.”

New Resources 0
April 16, 2022

University of Wisconsin-Madison: Nationwide maps of bird species can help protect biodiversity

University of Wisconsin-Madison: Nationwide maps of bird species can help protect biodiversity. “Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison developed the maps at a fine-enough resolution to help conservation managers focus their efforts where they are most likely to help birds — in individual counties or forests, rather than across whole states or regions. The maps span the contiguous U.S. and predict the diversity of birds that live in a given area, related by traits such as nesting on the ground or being endangered. Those predictions are based on both detailed observations of birds and environmental factors that affect bird ranges, such as the degree of forest cover or temperature in an area.”

New Resources 0
March 26, 2022

University of Nebraska-Lincoln: ‘Game Birds of the World’ collection available online

University of Nebraska-Lincoln: ‘Game Birds of the World’ collection available online. “The Game Birds of the World collection from the Nebraska State Museum is now available online. The collection is currently housed in Hardin Hall and now can be viewed on the School of Natural Resources website…. The collection contains more than 160 mounted individual game birds of 103 species from around the world.”

New Resources 0
February 25, 2022

University of Michigan: Body measurements for all 11,000 bird species released in open-access database

University of Michigan: Body measurements for all 11,000 bird species released in open-access database. “For each individual bird, we measured nine ‘morphological’ traits, related to physical aspects of their bodies: four beak measurements, three wing measurements, tail length, and tarsus length (lower leg). AVONET also includes body mass and hand-wing index, which is calculated from three wing measurements to give an estimate of flight efficiency, and so the ability of a species to disperse or move across the landscape. The final version contains measurements from 90,020 individual birds at an average of around nine individuals per species.”

New Resources 0
February 22, 2022

The Conversation: Altruism in birds? Magpies have outwitted scientists by helping each other remove tracking devices

The Conversation: Altruism in birds? Magpies have outwitted scientists by helping each other remove tracking devices. “When we attached tiny, backpack-like tracking devices to five Australian magpies for a pilot study, we didn’t expect to discover an entirely new social behaviour rarely seen in birds. Our goal was to learn more about the movement and social dynamics of these highly intelligent birds, and to test these new, durable and reusable devices. Instead, the birds outsmarted us.”

Research & Opinion 0
February 21, 2022

Arizona State University: ASU bird collection gets its ducks in a row

Arizona State University: ASU bird collection gets its ducks in a row. “Currently, it contains over 1,400 skins from around 450 species belonging to 75 families. While birds from Arizona are particularly well-represented in the collection, there are also specimens from 26 U.S. states, as well as from Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, Samoa, Kiribati and Kazakhstan…. When a collection is digitized, the information it contains is put into an online database. Information about the birds in the Ornithology Collection can be searched for and openly accessed through the Consortium of Small Vertebrate Collections.”

New Resources 0

The ResearchBuzz Firehose is regular RB content presented as individual posts.
For digest-type posts a couple of times a day, please visit ResearchBuzz.

Want to know how to best use the Firehose for content discovery?
Check out this handy article.

Get RB Firehose Via EMail

Enter your email address to subscribe to ResearchBuzz Firehose and get a firehose of new posts straight to your email.

Join 2,019 other subscribers

Recent Posts

Popular Posts

Latest ResearchBuzz Gizmos