SciShow Tangents is the lightly competitive knowledge showcase from the geniuses behind the YouTube series SciShow. Every other Tuesday, join Hank Green, Ceri Riley, and Sam Schultz as they try to one-up and amaze each other with weird and funny scientific research... while not getting distracted. There will be tangents about video games, music, weird smells, surprisingly deep insights about life, and of course, poop, but it always comes back to the science.
https://scishow-tangents.simplecast.com
episode 2: Flightless Birds
With American Thanksgiving around the corner, turkey is on everyone’s mind! So this week, we’re taking a closer look at flightless birds of all shapes and sizes! What prevents some birds from using their wings to fly? Did Australians really start a war against emus? Plus, we’ll answer your burning questions about the sex lives of many, many different kinds of birds! Wow!
Sources:
[Truth or Fail]
Inaccessible Island rail:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1055790318301763?via%3Dihub
https://gizmodo.com/how-a-tiny-flightless-bird-ended-up-on-an-island-in-the-1830188012
Ostrich egg globes:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130821-ostrich-globe-map-discovery-science-nation/
Emu War:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/the-great-emu-war-in-which-some-large-flightless-birds-unwittingly-foiled-the-australian-army/
[Fact Off]
Crested penguins:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/s-ppi021016.php
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00265-016-2060-z
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/uod-ppc062816.php
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep28785
Ratite reproduction:
https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2011.00858.x
http://mentalfloss.com/article/80394/10-facts-about-cassowaries
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2011/12/08/finally-the-ostrich-penis-provides-the-answer-to-a-long-standing-question/#.W6FsOZNKhxw
https://www.merckvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals/ratites/reproduction-of-ratites
[Ask the Science Couch]
Kākāpō:
https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2018/03/22/happy-hatchday-21-years-of-conservation-success-for-the-kakapo/
https://phys.org/news/2015-11-rimu-berry-game-changer-kakapo.html
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/060401_kakapo
[Butt One More Thing]
Ostrich urine & feces:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1095643303000060