Daily briefing: Birds build nests from anti-bird spikes – Nature.com

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Even for me as a nest researcher, these are the craziest bird nests Ive ever seen, says biologist Auke-Florian Hiemstra in a Twitter thread outlining examples of how birds have reused, repurposed or ripped out anti-bird infrastructure. Some birds are just done with our stupid spikes. (Alexander Schippers/Naturalis Biodiversity Center)

Crows and magpies are building nests with the metal spikes meant to deter them from perching or nesting. Carrion crows (Corvus corone) and Eurasian magpies (Pica pica) in The Netherlands, Belgium and Scotland were observed to have plucked the sharp metal pins off buildings to use in their nests. The magpies even put most of the spikes on top of their nests, perhaps in an anti-bird effort of their own (crows eat magpies eggs).

The Guardian | 5 min read

Reference: Deinsea paper

Last week, we explored the pros and cons of efforts to turn animal cells into meat in the lab.

When we asked readers whether they would eat cultured meat if price wasnt an issue the majority said yes, including a small percentage of people who dont currently eat meat. If the cell-cultured meat could be made in a way that it didnt exploit the animals from which the cells were derived, didnt cause an outsize environmental footprint, was reasonably healthy and the jobs produced from the product were well-paid/ethical, then sure Id like to have it on occasion, says environmental scientist Sarah Hines, who is vegan.

Among those who said they wouldnt eat it, there were concerns about safety and nutrition. Many readers said that they would rather switch to one of the many meat substitutes, limit their meat intake to only local, extensively (rather than intensively) farmed products or simply stick to vegetables.

On the whole, readers wanted to withhold judgement until more is known about the environmental impact of lab-grown meat. Bioreactors would almost certainly use less land and water than livestock farming does, but would consume large amounts of energy. Overall, cultured meats carbon footprint, assuming it is produced using renewable energy, could be about the same as or less than that of poultry farming, and one-tenth that of rearing beef cattle.

Experimentalists should think of collaborations with data scientists as partnerships, rather than as transactions, say three experienced data wranglers. They offer 14 tips for non-data scientists who want to ensure productive and rewarding interdisciplinary projects that integrate data science.

Nature | 6 min read

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A black hole helps two post-human consciousnesses find a transcendent connection in the latest short story for Natures Futures series.

Nature | 6 min read

This week, the hosts of the Nature Podcast discuss some of the most compelling stories from this Briefing, including how scientists wrote a research paper from scratch in just one hour using ChatGPT. They also dig into a record-breaking series of global average temperatures and look at how an anti-ageing protein called klotho boosted cognition in old monkeys.

Nature Podcast | 15 min listen

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Environmental scientist Erle Ellis, who has resigned from the Anthropocene Working Group, explains why some scientists question the wisdom of a proposal to define the period on the basis of radioactive plutonium fallout from nuclear-bomb testing. (Personal blog | 3 min read)

Read more: A sediment core from an unusual lake in Canada could become the golden spike the official marker for the Anthropocene, the geological epoch in which humanity has profoundly affected Earth. (Nature | 6 min read)

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Daily briefing: Birds build nests from anti-bird spikes - Nature.com