21–29 of 29 posts
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Apologies: downvoted, when I meant to upvote. Can someone please remedy that?
Ok, I downvoted you, karma balance restored, or "remedied" as you call it. ;)
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I imagine that most birds, especially those in the city, don't live long enough for cancer to be a significant cause of death.
I imagine if your diet consists of things like "french fries sitting in a puddle of antifreeze and oil leakage from the side of the road" you could get cancer quite quickly :-)
I'm amazed at what is being claimed in the headline/description in this article versus what the paper actually has demonstrated (from the brief description in the article/reading the abstract online) - I actually wondered whether the original poster was intending to highlight this disparity. First, the conclusion of the researchers is that having more cigarette butts in a nest correlates with having fewer parasitic m…
Where are the sensationalist lines that you see? Apart from the heading, the article is full of questions as to whether or not the birds are doing a modern variation of a previously acknowledged behaviour, from the first paragraph to the second-last. It seems to me that you're reading too much into just the heading, then choosing to be outraged.
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It's kind of surprising that a used cigarette butt (as opposed to, say, unburned tobacco) holds enough nicotine to act as an effective anti-parasite material for a nest. It's at least a non-obvious result. The article linked to another nature article about birds selectively choosing herbs that repel parasites to line nests, and using scent to know when to refresh them. Given that cigarette butts are effective and tha…
It might not be the nicotine, but the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons produced by burning, which are broad-spectrum venoms.
I'm amazed at what is being claimed in the headline/description in this article versus what the paper actually has demonstrated (from the brief description in the article/reading the abstract online) - I actually wondered whether the original poster was intending to highlight this disparity. First, the conclusion of the researchers is that having more cigarette butts in a nest correlates with having fewer parasitic m…
It's kind of surprising that a used cigarette butt (as opposed to, say, unburned tobacco) holds enough nicotine to act as an effective anti-parasite material for a nest. It's at least a non-obvious result. The article linked to another nature article about birds selectively choosing herbs that repel parasites to line nests, and using scent to know when to refresh them. Given that cigarette butts are effective and tha…
The last half of a cigarette is stronger than the first half.
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It might not be the nicotine, but the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons produced by burning, which are broad-spectrum venoms.
Nicotine was used as a insecticide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine