How Bird Flocks Resemble Liquid Helium

sciencehabit (1205606) writes "A flock of starlings flies as one, a spectacular display in which each bird flits about as if in a well-choreographed dance. Everyone seems to know exactly when and where to turn. Now, for the first time, researchers have measured how that knowledge moves through the flock—a behavior that mirrors certain quantum phenomena of liquid helium. Some of the more interesting findings: Tracking data showed that the message for a flock to turn started from a handful of birds and swept through the flock at a constant speed between 20 and 40 meters per second. That means that for a group of 400 birds, it takes just a little more than a half-second for the whole flock to turn."

Comments

There have been attempts before

[Artifakt]

One factor not mentioned in the summary, is that bad computer models for flocking can still generate what looks like realistic flocking behavior. The herd dinos in Jurrassic Park are an example of this - the animation formula assumed each dino was instantaniously aware of all the rest, without allowing time for their nervous systems to work, but the flocking motions still looked right to most people, including professionals. People should remember too, humans probably have some pretty good mechanisms built into their brains for analyzing flocking, so that our ancestors, going at least as far back as the ape-like ones, could successfully hunt birds in flocks, and we collectively and historically certainly have had a lot of practice at that. We, as a species, ought to have some skill at detecting what constitutes real flocking behavior, but if we do, it doesn't always make a bad formula look jarring or wrong. So when somebody claims they have a real formula for what's going on when birds and such flock, the next question is "Can this claim even be proven or disproven?"

Re:There have been attempts before

[newcastlejon]

Back then the short cut they took probably saved them weeks in rendering time, and as you say, came out looking realistic.

Why is that? There's no reason that I can think of why one couldn't just decide how the creatures would flock using simple stick figures then add the rest of the models later.

In any case, we're in no position to judge how accurately a film recreated the behaviours of creatures that haven't been found in the wild for millions of years. Certainly we can infer a lot based on what we can observe in their distant descendants but it's still one of those things that takes some dramatic license (just like Lego genetics and the noise that a roaring T-Rex makes).

Re:There have been attempts before

[OzPeter]

Can this claim even be proven or disproven?

Silly question on a nerd site, you don't "prove" anything with science, and Jurassic park was a movie, not a scientific model.

Years and years ago I saw some academic research that modeled bird flocking with a simple "Try and keep a constant distance from my neighbors" algorithm. The video (vector graphics with the birds rendered as simple triangles) of the animations produced a very lifelike behavior of a flock of birds flying around and through groups of fixed objects. I'd say if anything that the animators of Jurassic park were probably aware of such techniques.

Re:There have been attempts before

[RaceProUK]

Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out the T-Rex actually barked like a Yorkshire terrier?

Re:There have been attempts before

[JustOK]

How would a T-Rex know what a Yorkshire terrier sounded like?

Re:There have been attempts before

[Kielistic]

The model you are talking about is called boids. It is a relatively simple AI model that demonstrates emergent behaviour.

Re:There have been attempts before

[gurps_npc]

Ever hear of the "jinx" tradition? It is when you say something at the exact same time you have to do "x". X is irrelevant (sorry math teacher). The point is that if two or more creatures are intent on doing the exact same thing - say eating grass while looking out for predators, they are very likely to spot something strange at the exact same time, both reacting at the exact same time. It is not telepathy, because the creatures are not reacting to each other.

The same thing often happens in flocks. All the creatures sense and react in the exact same way (herd animals are not noted for their individuality), at the exact same time. Even if the herd is large, they see, or hear/

Now, if they smell the creature, or if the herd is so large that some creatures can not see or hear the stimulus, then the herd starts to react to itself. But quite a lot of the time, an entire herd will become aware of the stimulus at the exact same time and react at the exact same time.

This is cold, man.

[Anonymous Coward]

So cold. Liquid helium cold.

Smart Birds

[Anonymous Coward]

Bird#1 - "Hey lets do our formation exercise as always after 5 seconds we turn right then left after 6 seconds....the humans will think we are telepathic or something"

Re:That's good.

[Neil Boekend]

Of course not. Birds don't run, they fly.

Re:That's good.

[newcastlejon]

Birds don't run, they fly.

Meep-meep?

Helium?

[disposable60]

Does that explain why their singing voices are so high-pitched?

Re:Helium?

[JustOK]

no, it's because most of them crack their nuts with their beaks.