Sunday, January 25, 2009

The Smithsonian's Avian Forensics Lab.

The New York Times has a very interesting article (to me at least) on the Smithsonian Institute's Feather Identification Lab, their main work is in identifying what species of bird managed to get sucked into an aeroplane engine. As you can imagine they wouldn't have much to work with so it gets down to feathers, DNA and bird guts. Once they've identified the bird they can then make management recommendations for the airport to avoid similar impacts.

(oh and for one of those names suiting the occupation things, one of the scientists working there is a Dr Dove)

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