"He'll stand up and go da da da and you'll hear snap snap snap from his beak and it'll all be over and he'll be sitting down for an hour."

Wow, I believe this humminbird has been spying on my bedroom.

da da da snap snap snap, snzzzzzz

Slight tangent: hummingbird wings beat 5000 times a minute, yet their bones see absolutely no fatigue cracking. Pretty crazy from a material science standpoint, and yet there's more or less zero explanation in the literature as to why this happens.

Fake

yogaFLAME: Slight tangent: hummingbird wings beat 5000 times a minute, yet their bones see absolutely no fatigue cracking. Pretty crazy from a material science standpoint, and yet there's more or less zero explanation in the literature as to why this happens.

Composites and metals don't rebuild their molecular structure regularly like bone does.

Zumaki: yogaFLAME: Slight tangent: hummingbird wings beat 5000 times a minute, yet their bones see absolutely no fatigue cracking. Pretty crazy from a material science standpoint, and yet there's more or less zero explanation in the literature as to why this happens.

Composites and metals don't rebuild their molecular structure regularly like bone does.

I inferred that he meant that the bones show no indication of repeated stress/fatigue fractures and healing.

Watch it now... as it extends and inflates its neck sack.
It does this in order to attract... Nature Show hosts!
Link (new window)

Zumaki: yogaFLAME: Slight tangent: hummingbird wings beat 5000 times a minute, yet their bones see absolutely no fatigue cracking. Pretty crazy from a material science standpoint, and yet there's more or less zero explanation in the literature as to why this happens.

Composites and metals don't rebuild their molecular structure regularly like bone does.

When I say "no fatigue cracking", I mean no fatigue cracking. Any given human bone accrues lots of damage in the form of microcracks, which do end up triggering osteoblastic remodeling. Hummingbird bones show zero microcracking. Remember, too, that the remodeling process is on the order of weeks, whereas if you run the numbers, fatigue microcracks should be appearing in hummingbird bones after less than a day of cycling.

Anyway, I'm dumbing down a lot of the details here, but suffice to say that there's a lot of wibbly-wobbly bone shenanigans that we don't quite understand.

/check profile

Cervantes3773: I inferred that he meant that the bones show no indication of repeated stress/fatigue fractures and healing.

Or to be concise, this.

yogaFLAME: Cervantes3773: I inferred that he meant that the bones show no indication of repeated stress/fatigue fractures and healing.

Or to be concise, this.

Thanks, a good friend of mine is a materials science engineer. I listen when he talks; it's pretty interesting stuff.

yogaFLAME: When I say "no fatigue cracking", I mean no fatigue cracking.


I know nothing about hummingbird biology, but:

Are the bones *fully* calcified? And what are the actual stresses involved to begin with? 5000 beats per minute may be a lot but it says nothing on actual stresses and deflection of the bones.
=Smidge=

Smidge204: Are the bones *fully* calcified?

It's almost entirely cortical (lamellar) bone in the wings. Interestingly, it's extremely porous and hollow, for lightness' sake, yet they are obviously strong.

Smidge204: And what are the actual stresses involved to begin with?

Can't remember off the top of my head (hence my previous punt "if you run the numbers") but it's non-trivial, hundreds of microstrain.

Hummingbird bones are made of solidified cute.

Theaetetus: jehovahs witness protection: This is one of those rare occasions on fark where I actually forward something to my mom.

You mean you don't forward gorgor links?

I do.

We don't talk anymore.

"Check out those tail feathers!"
"Think he's compensating for something?"

Also reminds me of my college years.

Me: LOOK I'M IMPRESSIVE!

Them: You are tiny and can only stay aloft for several seconds.

Heeeerrre in the Peruvian ...

/ love David Attenborough, with his "here's"
// Sir Richard's brother
/// you knew that.

As in human mating rituals, the female just sits there passively, even actively ignoring the male, because he is not "bad boy" enough.

Females of every sexual species have criteria that they use for selection of mates. Anything that is public and costly will do. Public simply means visible. Costly means difficult to acquire or maintain. If the criteria isn't public the female *can't* use it for selection, and if it's not costly she can't use it to discriminate. The hummingbird's tail is obviously public, but it takes a lot of energy for a male to grow that tail, and to stay alive with the tail (I imagine it's easier for predators to see it and catch it with that giant thing flapping around) and as they mention in the video, it's exhausting for him to display with it. Thus, a female can easily sort males based on it.

Gig103: Thanks to beer, humans do not need this sort of thing.

Don't kid yourself. Humans are no exception. Humans are not special, magical, "created in the image of God" beings that don't follow the rules that every other sexual species follows. Human females have the exact same sorts of instincts that every other species has.

Tofu: Females of every sexual species have criteria that they use for selection of mates. Anything that is public and costly will do. Public simply means visible. Costly means difficult to acquire or maintain. If the criteria isn't public the female *can't* use it for selection, and if it's not costly she can't use it to discriminate. The hummingbird's tail is obviously public, but it takes a lot of energy for a male to grow that tail, and to stay alive with the tail (I imagine it's easier for predators to see it and catch it with that giant thing flapping around) and as they mention in the video, it's exhausting for him to display with it. Thus, a female can easily sort males based on it.

Gig103: Thanks to beer, humans do not need this sort of thing.

Don't kid yourself. Humans are no exception. Humans are not special, magical, "created in the image of God" beings that don't follow the rules that every other sexual species follows. Human females have the exact same sorts of instincts that every other species has.

Hence the preference for leaders, height, large muscles and wealth.

That's some hot sh*t right there!

And I thought I had to work hard to get laid.

Darn, video won't load past the advert. Going to have to wait until I get home now :/

Tofu: Females of every sexual species have criteria that they use for selection of mates. Anything that is public and costly will do. Public simply means visible. Costly means difficult to acquire or maintain. If the criteria isn't public the female *can't* use it for selection, and if it's not costly she can't use it to discriminate. The hummingbird's tail is obviously public, but it takes a lot of energy for a male to grow that tail, and to stay alive with the tail (I imagine it's easier for predators to see it and catch it with that giant thing flapping around) and as they mention in the video, it's exhausting for him to display with it. Thus, a female can easily sort males based on it.

Gig103: Thanks to beer, humans do not need this sort of thing.

Don't kid yourself. Humans are no exception. Humans are not special, magical, "created in the image of God" beings that don't follow the rules that every other sexual species follows. Human females have the exact same sorts of instincts that every other species has.

It's true. I only date men with ostentatious tail feathers.

The volume on my media player goes up to 11.

My god the BBC create great programs.

This series is amazing in HD.

Looking forward to the next one.

badLogic: We had a hummingbird fly into our house once through an open window. After 15 mins of trying to herd it out I caught it in my hands and released it outside. Was pretty amazing to be holding one of these. Should have had my wife take a picture =)

This brought a traumatic story I had to hear from my grandmother back into the forefront of my mind. When my grandmother was a child she nearly killed a hummingbird in her hands because it's considered "good luck" to kill them in her rural backwater part of Mexico. She didn't kill it. I would be happy to have on land on me.

/horrified
//happy to SEE a hummingbird

Hummingbirds require Thomas Diethelm music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyQ1_vw9qpE

I don't give a shiat what species you are.... THAT is entirely too much work for a piece of ass. Nature is a beotch to men. For once I'd like to see the female work for it.

Your on top tonight baby. Shake that thang and make me a sandwich!

yogaFLAME: When I say "no fatigue cracking", I mean no fatigue cracking. Any given human bone accrues lots of damage in the form of microcracks, which do end up triggering osteoblastic remodeling. Hummingbird bones show zero microcracking. Remember, too, that the remodeling process is on the order of weeks, whereas if you run the numbers, fatigue microcracks should be appearing in hummingbird bones after less than a day of cycling.

Anyway, I'm dumbing down a lot of the details here, but suffice to say that there's a lot of wibbly-wobbly bone shenanigans that we don't quite understand.



My fault, I'm used to the politics tab. I agree it seems impressive, but I'm still hesitant to believe there's much special about their bone structure; after all, insects have wings made of flimsy stuff thats like a bio-plastic film, and they can do some pretty fantastic stuff that - if scaled up to our size - would be impossible. I think it just has to do with the hummingbird being very small, very light, and having tiny wings.

Of course if some findings were ever published that demonstrated that their wings were taking a severe amount of stress and its only handled due to a special bone composition, I would be impressed.