Collisions with birds are a serious threat to both military and civilian airplanes. And, yes, the military could have spent millions of dollars developing an avian projectile that would have the same characteristics as a bird, and millions of dollars more manufacturing these synthetic projectiles to be fired at airplane windshields and engines for testing purposes. Or they could just buy dead chickens. And in a rare case of sensible military spending decisions, they did indeed, back in the 1990s, develop and implement the chicken gun.

The military could have spent millions of dollars developing an avian projectile…Or they could just buy dead chickens.”

Was this a science story? Well, when you’re developing a science radio feature for teen listeners, the answer is, yes, absolutely! Or “close enough.” It’s technology, it’s engineering and, well, “chicken gun.”

So the story of the chicken gun became one of the 14 pilot episodes for Sonic Boom, featuring Rhea Seahorn, John Tweel, Steven Carpenter, and (I’m sorry… I’ve forgotten the other last names) Alex, Lloyd, Renina, and Ami. John and Steve already worked on another radio program we produced (the Peabody Award winning children’s drama Kinetic City Super Crew.) Rhea, Alex, Lloyd, Renina and Ami auditioned for the gig on November 23, 1996, along with dozens of other DC-area actors. And on December 14, they were part of the call-backs for final cast selection. Rhea Seehorn, unsurprisingly, was a standout (no disrespect to our other cast members—we were fortunate to have them, too.)

Here is that show, followed by the transcript, followed by some fun chicken gun additional info.

Sonic Boom: Chicken Gun Transcript

Rhea  

Rhea here with Lloyd and Alex. Today on Sonic Boom: It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a mess.

Alex  

Hey, Alex here. We’re answering a letter from Jerome Walker in Chicago. He has two questions. First, did the Air Force really build a gun that shoots chickens out of it?

Rhea  

Don’t be ridiculous, Alex, the Air Force didn’t build a chicken cannon. They bought it from the Navy.

Lloyd  

Yeah, right, Rhea. Give me one good reason why the US Armed Forces would want to turn an ordinary oven stuffer into a cruise missile.

Alex  

How’s this? They use it to test out the windshields of fighter jets.

Rhea  

That’s right. Planes hit birds all the time. And if I’m a pilot roaring along at mach one, the last thing I want is a broken windshield and a face full of bird guts.

Alex  

Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. Now, here’s Jerome’s other question: how do the chickens feel about all this?

Rhea  

Not much. They’re dead. They get them from the supermarket. About the only thing going through these birds heads is their feet. 

Lloyd  

Sick. For your information, guys, bird impacts are actually a serious problem. Planes have actually gone down because of it. That’s why I get bird collision insurance every time I fly.

Alex  

I know what you’re talking about. Lloyd, my uncle was in the Air Force. They almost lost their squad leader when his plane smacked into a pelican.

Rhea  

And pilots aren’t the only ones that have to worry. High speed trains can get wrecked by birds too. In fact, I heard this great story: a while back, British Rail borrowed the Air Force chicken gun, but they kind of screwed up the procedure.

Lloyd  

I’m afraid to ask what happened?

Alex  

Kaboom, the sucker went right through the windshield, past the driver’s seat. Next thing you know is clearing out the overhead luggage compartment. 

Lloyd  

The lesson being? 

Rhea  

If you’re going to flip the bird at a train, you better thaw it out first.

Alex  

For Sonic Boom, I’m Alex with Lloyd and Rhea, and we’re out.

Want More Chicken Gun Info?

Whoa, you’re hardcore. Okay, here’s the Wikipedia entry for Chicken Gun, which covers the long history of poultry in motion

Pistol Packing Poultry:

Still aren’t chickened out? Well, there’s a game called Chicken Gun, in which “ Armed chickens shoot and fight with each other. Shooting on the network with two modes, 5 vs 5 and Against All. You can cool your rooster, weapon, beak, sneakers and caps.”  

Have fun! And let’s make Cool Your Rooster happen.

More Chickens With Guns:

PETA created this gun-toting chicken to remind us that while dead birds don’t tell tales, they can transmit deadly pathogens.

Guns in Chickens (Bonus: Florida Man!)

Putting chickens in guns is a job for our armed forces. Putting guns in chickens is a job for FLORIDA MAN! Yes, Fox News 13 reports that a man attempted to smuggle a gun through TSA by hiding it in the body cavity of a chicken which, as it turns out, did not have a valid concealed carry permit.

The post Sonic Boom: Chicken Gun appeared first on Science Update.

TRANSCRIPT

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Dreaming up answers. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Many creative thinkers, including artists, musicians and scientists, report getting new insights through dreams. Harvard clinical psychologist Deirdre Barrett studies creative dreaming, and has found that t he dreaming brain specializes in visual-spatial solutions.

BARRETT:

Problems that start off as visual always get solved in a straightforward visual way in the dream, but things that are more of a word problem or math problem often get represented in images, because that seems to be the part of the mind that’s most active during dreaming.

HIRSHON:

She says dreams also excel at solving problems requiring outside the box thinking, probably because our prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain that filters out ideas that are silly or inappropriate—is quiet during sleep, allowing unusual ideas to surface. She says visualizing a problem before going to sleep, and having paper, pen and a flashlight on a bedside table frequently yields valuable new insights. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

MORE INFO

If you want to hear Dr. Barrett discuss sleep in detail, check out this podcast on the Science of Dreaming from the American Psychological Association.

Also, check out this video, Dream Hacking, from NOVA.

A study titled Increased Creative Thinking in Narcolepsy looks at creativity in patients with narcolepsy, a condition characterized by a sudden onset of REM-stage sleep. Since creativity has been associated with this stage of sleep, the authors wanted to see if narcolepsy patients were more creative than a control group.

Researchers are also looking at the effects of daytime napping on different types of creativity.

And this study looks at our ability to enhance the creativity-boosting qualities of our sleep.

The post Creative Dreaming appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Refining robot social skills. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Making eye contact is an important social skill, but so is occasionally breaking eye contact. That’s true for robots as well. Bilge Mutlu is a professor of computer science, psychology, and engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His team found that humans were most comfortable talking to robots that glanced away in typical human patterns: to signal the other person’s turn to speak, for example.

BILGE MUTLU (University of Wisconsin, Madison):

People don’t interrupt the robot when it’s averting its gaze. And both when no aversion, or, sort of badly timed aversions happen, people are more likely to interrupt the robot, they think the robot’s not as thoughtful, and they don’t think that the robot’s behaviors are intentional.

HIRSHON:

——————————

This research was a project of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, co-led by Professors Bilge Mutlu and Michael Gleicher, and carried out by graduate student Sean Andrist and undergraduate student Zhi Tan.

The post Robot Gaze Aversion appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (Host):

Bombardier beetle buddies. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Bombardier beetles are bright blue and red, which helps to advertise their fierce defensive arsenal: burning hot toxic chemicals they can spray from nozzles on their butts. In the journal PLOS ONE, University of Arizona entomologist Wendy Moore and her colleagues report that while the nocturnal beetles are solitary at night, many different species shelter together during the day, under rocks.  

WENDY MOORE (University of Arizona, Tucson):

It’s actually a fairly unusual phenomenon for different species to regularly associate with one another.

HIRSHON:

One reason could be that the different species bring different toxic weapons.

MOORE:

–that probably contribute to a big chemical cocktail for a vertebrate predator that might find them during the day.

HIRSHON:

And the huge mass of brightly colored beetles could warn would-be predators to back off. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

The post Bombardier Beetle Buddies appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Dancing with the lyrebirds. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

(Lyrebird song)

This might sound like a shoot-’em up arcade game, but it’s really an Australian bird serenading a female. Superb lyrebirds are known for their prodigious vocal talents. But now, scientists have discovered that the males also impress females by pairing each of their courting songs with a particular dance. Australian National University behavioral ecologist Anastasia Dalziell led the study.

ANASTASIA DALZIELL (Australian National University):

When they’re dancing they have just four different songs, and with each of those four songs, the lyrebirds have a unique set of dance movements. So depending on what songs they sing, you can predict what kind of dance moves they’re going to perform.

HIRSHON:

She says as in humans, coordinating dance moves with songs is hard work. So it’s possible that females pick their mates based on their ability to groove. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Watch a video about superb lyrebird song and dance

For more information about this study, visit: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.05.018

The post The Lyrebird’s Dance appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Debunking a sticky myth…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Listener Michelle Simms of Alexandria, Virginia says her parents warned her never to swallow chewing gum because it wouldn’t be digested for seven years. We asked Dr. Aaron Carroll, a health services researcher at the Indiana University School of Medicine, if this is true.

AARON CARROLL (Indiana University School of Medicine):

There’s no truth to the idea that swallowed gum will stay in your stomach for seven years. The body is incredibly good at getting things from one end to the other, even things that aren’t digestible.

HIRSHON:

Carroll says gum will normally pass through the system in about 24 hours. However, he warns that swallowing very large pieces of gum could cause an emergency blockage. And if you have a science question, give us a call at 1-800-WHY-ISIT. Thmat’s 1-800-949-4748. If we answer your question on the show, we’ll send you a Science Update mug! I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

The post Chewing Gum Myth appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Buzzing about the eclipse. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

The total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 captivated people across North America, including 5th graders living in the path of totality. The young citizen scientists investigated what bees do when the sun disappears behind the moon. University of Missouri researchers Candi Galen and Zack Miller helped them deploy tiny microphones to record the buzzing of bees in flight before, during, and after the eclipse. Galen says instead of gradually ramping down their buzzing as darkness fell, the bees kept flying. But as soon as totality hit, they stopped.

CANDI GALEN (University of Missouri):

At that time, the buzzing ceased, which meant that there were no bee flights. That surprised us.

HIRSHON:

They write in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America that the students continued to learn from their data for months afterwards. Catch the next total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

LEARN MORE

Story by Susanne Bard

The post The 2017 Bee-Clipse appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Skunk vs skunk. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

[Pepé LePew clip] The cartoon skunk Pepé LePew was oblivious to his own stink, and listener Arthur Magida wonders whether skunks in general are immune. We asked University of New Mexico skunk researcher Jerry Dragoo. He says that skunks and other members of the order Carnivora, including dogs, don’t seem to mind the smell. But they are still repelled because the spray is an irritant.

JERRY DRAGOO (University of New Mexico):

If one skunk gets sprayed by another one, and it hits him in the face, gets him in the eyes, they do go through a lot of the typical behaviors you could see a dog do, you know, rub their face in the dirt, put their paws up to their face and rub it a little bit, so they are definitely affected by it when another animal sprays them.

HIRSHON:

If you have a science question, give us a call at 1-800-WHY-ISIT. Or email us from our website, science update dot com. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

The post Skunk Smell appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Spacecraft hygiene. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

The NASA Office of Planetary Protection is sort of a high-tech janitorial service cleaning and checking spacecraft for bacteria and their tough spores. Betsy Pugel is deputy to the Planetary Protection Officer.

BETSY PUGEL (NASA):

So that when something goes to Mars, or Enceladus, places that may have life, that we know what we’re taking along in terms of a biological load.

HIRSHON:

But she says no matter how carefully they scrub, some spores manage to survive.

PUGEL:

Nature always finds a way. You think you’ve cleaned something to the nth degree and somehow, somewhere there’s something that manages to persist.

HIRSHON:

In fact, the extreme efforts the group takes to disinfect the spacecraft have led to the discovery of new types of super-tough microorganisms that survive their efforts — clues to the very sorts of microbes that might live on other worlds. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

LEARN MORE

Story by Bob Hirshon

The post Planetary Hygiene appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

A guppy-munching insect. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Giants among insects, praying mantises have been observed to gobble up frogs, rodents, and even small birds. Now, researchers report in the Journal of Orthoptera Research that fish can be added to that list. Italian entomologist Roberto Battiston of the Musei del Canal di Brenta has been working with the insects for 20 years.

ROBERTO BATTISTON (Musei del Canal di Brenta/Museums of the Canal of Brenta):

So I was quite surprised because it is the first time heard about mantis feeding on a fish.

HIRSHON:

He says colleagues in India first alerted him to the unusual behavior via social media. They documented the mantis climbing onto pond vegetation to grab the guppies at night.

BATTISTON:

They have very sharp mandibles, so they basically cut the fish like a Japanese chef.

HIRSHON:

Battiston says the insects have large brains and may actually learn to fish through repeated experience. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

Original source:

Battiston R, Puttaswamaiah R, Manjunath N (2018) The fishing mantid: predation on fish as a new adaptive strategy for praying mantids (Insecta: Mantodea). Journal of Orthoptera Research27(2): 155-158. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.27.28067

Story by Susanne Bard

The post Fish-Eating Praying Mantis appeared first on Science Update.