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Woodpeckers

Woodpeckers show signs of possible brain damage, but that might not be a bad thing. With each peck, woodpeckers absorb more than ten times the force it would take to give a human a concussion. But they seem fine. Researchers examined the brains of woodpeckers in museum collections and saw that the brains showed a build-up of a protein that's a sign of brain damage in humans. The woodpeckers might not have sustained brain damage themselves, though -- the researchers think that protein build-up could possibly be beneficial to the birds. Source 7a.

Woodpeckers

Woodpeckers' heads act more like stiff hammers than safety helmets. Scientists had long wondered how woodpeckers can repeatedly pound their beaks against tree trunks without doing damage to their brains. This led to the notion that their skulls must act like shock-absorbing helmets. Now, researchers have refuted this notion, saying that their heads act more like stiff hammers. In fact, their calculations show that any shock absorbance would hinder the woodpeckers' pecking abilities. Source 3o.

Woodpeckers UFO & Writing Art Education Sciences

1On the other hand, woodpeckers have, let's say,? good heads? To peck.

For starters, their brains are tiny: they weigh just 2 grams. And that's an advantage because the bigger the brain, the greater its mass, and therefore the greater the risk of brain injury, says Lorna Gibson, a professor of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).), who has studied the brain of woodpeckers.

“Size is key,” says Gibson, an avid birdwatcher, who documented her results with a series of videos.

Gibson adds that another factor that protects the brain of woodpeckers is the contact time between the tree and the pick: it is very short, between 0.5? 1 millisecond. By comparison, a typical human brain injury occurs in 3 to 15 milliseconds.

In fact, the woodpecker's ability to absorb blows has inspired the development of a system to limit concussions in sports such as soccer.