Light is a Feather by Scott LaFee - Eureka! on Creators.com

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Light is a Feather

Bird bones are hollow, a fact once explained by the simple presumption that hollowness made birds lighter and that made flight easier. In fact, bird bones weigh just as much as the bones of similarly sized mammals. The skeleton of a two-ounce hummingbird weighs just as much as the skeleton of a two-ounce mouse.

In a new paper, University of Massachusetts bat researcher Elizabeth Dumont explains why bird bones can look so delicate, yet still be heavy: They're simply much denser than mammalian bone. Being denser, said Dumont, makes the bones heavier, but it also makes them stiffer and stronger, which helps flying animals.

Dumont found that bird bones were densest, followed closely by bats. To compensate for heavy bones, birds have evolved compensations, such as fusing some bones together and reducing the number of bones altogether.

'TRUE FACTS'

Scientists suspect a spectacled owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata) in the death of a Panamanian three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) that was found with its internal organs eaten. It's believed the sloth was probably killed on its weekly trip to the bathroom.

JUST ASKING

If practice makes perfect and nobody's perfect, why practice?

PRIME NUMBERS

2.5 — Number of times more likely an auklet is to bump its head in the dark when its crest or whiskers are flattened

Source: Harper's

YOUR PLACE IN SPACE

Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas is advertising for astronauts to crew its proposed Sundancer inflatable space station.

The orbiting habitat would use air pressure alone to maintain its shape. The 12-year-old company is financed by Robert Bigelow, owner of Budget Suites of America.

ANTHROPOLOGY 101

In Cheshire, England, a pig that had given birth to a litter would be fed a bread-and-butter sandwich for good luck.

BRAIN SWEAT

Translate these rebuses:

1. thought an

2. chawhowhorge

3. take pets

VERBATIM

An expert is someone who has made all the mistakes that can be made, but in a very narrow field.

— Danish physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

BRAIN SWEAT ANSWERS

1. An afterthought

2. Who's in charge

3. Take step backwards

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.