Birds, birds, birds

Just last night my husband and I were talking about crows. If you are new to the blog or if you missed it, my husband is a native Spanish speaker and I am a high school Spanish teacher.  We live 18 miles from the middle of nowhere.  This is a place crows love.  Between the crops in the fields and the roadkill on the country highways, it is a crow buffet.

 One thing we discovered was that in English we use the term scarecrow, but in Spanish the broader term espantapájaros translates to scare birds. We do seem to be fixated on the crows. This morning my mom sent me a link to a TED Talk video about the Smart Bird. In searching for more info about that, I found this video about crows and our relationship to them. Some of you may have seen a video of Betty the crow making her own tools, but that is actually not what this is all about. Watch to the end to see the crow vending machine.

Festo has produced all sorts of robotic creatures using biomimicry .  Click to check out their Bionic Learning Network.  I know you want to see the robotic jelly fish, ray, and penguin!