![]() ![]() "He looked at them and said these are junk pigeons and let them go and before long they were right back." But the scientists were able to clean out the antenna and determine that they had not been the cause of the noise. "We took the pigeons, put them in a box, and mailed them as far away as we could in the company mail to a guy who fancied pigeons," one of the scientists later recalled. But when they first heard the sound, they thought it might be, among other things, the poop of two pigeons that were living in the antenna. In 1964, scientists in Holmdel, New Jersey, heard hissing noises from their antenna that would later prove to be signals from the Big Bang. ![]() TWO PIGEONS ALMOST DISTRACTED FROM THE DISCOVERY OF EVIDENCE OF THE BIG BANG. One racing bird named Cher Ami completed a mission that led to the rescue of 194 stranded U.S. (America alone had 200,000 at its disposal in WWII.) By delivering critical updates, the avians saved thousands of human lives. In both World Wars, rival nations had huge flocks of pigeon messengers. Pigeons' homing talents continued to shape history during the 20th century. THEY SAVED THOUSANDS OF HUMAN LIVES DURING WORLD WARS I AND II. Further east, Genghis Khan stayed in touch with his allies and enemies alike through a pigeon-based postal network. Sports fans in ancient Greece are said to have used trained pigeons to carry the results of the Ancient Olympics. Their navigational skills also make pigeons great long-distance messengers. How they do this is a mystery, but people have been exploiting the pigeon's navigational skills since at least 3000 BCE, when ancient peoples would set caged pigeons free and follow them to nearby land. ![]() The birds can do this even if they've been transported in isolation-with no visual, olfactory, or magnetic clues-while scientists rotate their cages so they don't know what direction they're traveling in. THEY CAN FIND THEIR WAY BACK TO THE NEST FROM 1300 MILES AWAY. It's thought that humans process those concepts with a brain region called the parietal cortex pigeon brains lack that cortex, so they must have a different way of judging space and time. Pigeons, the scientists concluded, understand the concepts of both time and space the researchers noted "similar results have been found with humans and other primates." The reverse was true too: If the pigeons encountered a longer line, they thought it existed in time for a greater duration. They found that the more time a line was displayed, the longer in length the pigeon judged it to be. The pigeons were trained to evaluate either the length of the line or how long it was displayed. Some lines were short, measuring about 2.3 inches across others were four times longer. In a 2017 Current Biology study, researchers showed captive pigeons a series of digital lines on a computer screen for either two or eight seconds. As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life." Reportedly, he was inconsolable after she died. When she was ill, I knew and understood she came to my room and I stayed beside her for days. Hands down, Tesla's favorite was a white female-about whom he once said, "I loved that pigeon, I loved her as a man loves a woman and she loved me. He used to care for injured wild pigeons in his New York City hotel room. ![]() Nikola Tesla was another great mind who enjoyed pigeons. Darwin's passion for the birds influenced his 1868 book The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, which has not one but two chapters about pigeons (dogs and cats share a single chapter). Few hobbyists had more enthusiasm for the breeding process than Charles Darwin, who owned a diverse flock, joined London pigeon clubs, and hobnobbed with famous breeders. Pigeon-breeding was a common hobby in Victorian England for everyone from well-off businessmen to average Joes, leading to some fantastically weird birds. THEY WON OVER CHARLES DARWIN-AND NIKOLA TESLA. You can see them in art dating back as far as 4500 BCE in modern Iraq, and they've been a valuable source of food for thousands of years. The common city pigeon ( Columba livia), also known as the rock pigeon, might be the first bird humankind ever domesticated. THEY MIGHT BE THE FIRST DOMESTICATED BIRD. From homing instincts to misleading rump feathers, here are 15 things you might not know about these avian adventurers. Though they're often described as "rats with wings" (a phrase popularized by the movie Stardust Memories), pigeons are actually pretty cool. ![]()
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