Problem-Solving Falcons

On this week’s news update…

New Kind of Shirt

A shirt that helps you feel music,

Creating Green Space

creating green space in one of the world’s largest cities,

Problem-Solving Falcons

and problem-solving falcons.

First up…

SoundShirt

Engineers at CuteCircuit have created the SoundShirt, which brings music to life for those with hearing difficulties.

It is worn over the user’s clothes and allows them to feel the music.

Now, Chicago’s Lyric Opera is providing SoundShirts to Deaf and hard of hearing audience members.

Onstage microphones record the music and send live signals to activate vibrations in the shirt, which wearers feel on their shoulders, arms, or back.

Different instruments create different sounds, and some of these sounds are more intense than others.

To communicate this, the shirt provides different strengths of vibrations for the wearer to experience.

It has been developed over the last few years, but Lyric is the first opera company in the world to use it.

Lyric hopes that the SoundShirt will make their performances more accessible, enabling even more people to enjoy their music.

Up next…

Azabudai Hills

The Azabudai Hills development in Tokyo was designed by Heatherwick Studios to bring much-needed greenery to the city.

Tokyo has relatively few green spaces for its large population to enjoy.

Azabudai Hills was built to help change that.

To create the development, they began by building computer models and scale models to test their plans.

The architects designed a grid-like structure that formed a wave pattern over the buildings.

This means that trees and plants can grow along the walls and roofs.

As a result, the finished buildings look and feel like rolling hills in the city.

The completed district has homes, shops, and schools to encourage socializing, whilst the outdoor pathways allow for exploration and a chance to connect with nature.

The architects hope their design will help support the wellbeing of people and nature, allowing both to flourish within the city.

And finally…

striated caracaras falcon

Striated caracaras falcons live on the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Dr. Katie Harrington

Since 2015, Dr. Katie Harrington has been studying the behavior of the birds on the islands, and recently, she carried out an experiment to test the problem-solving skills of these falcons.

To do so, she created a puzzle box with eight different challenges for the birds to solve.

Goffin’s Cockatoos

Feb. 2023

Her experiment was inspired by another scientific study on Goffin’s Cockatoos.

Like the cockatoos, the falcons solved puzzles to reach bits of food.

She discovered that out of the 15 falcons tested, 10 of them solved all eight challenges with no training, and the birds got faster each time they tried the puzzles.

She found that the falcons used their feet the way humans would use their hands to solve the problems.

Now, Katie plans to continue her research and return to the experiment next year to see if these brainy birds remember how to solve her puzzle box.

She believes that studying how these animals learn and adapt to new challenges is important for estimating their long-term survival.

That’s all for this week—we’ll see you next time!