Pigeons

The radio show – Killers of the Flower Moon Photograph: Melinda Sue Gordon/APMartin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is frequently enthralling over the course of its three-and-a-half-hour runtime, sinking into the depths of American shame as it follows William Hale (Robert De Niro) and his unofficial lieutenant Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) as they grasp for the money and land controlled by the Osage tribe in 1920s Oklahoma, which involves slowly poisoning Ernest’s wife Mollie (Lily Gladstone) as they kill off…

A carrier pigeon with a message attached to its leg is about to be released. Golden Gate bird allianceWhile many of the people who chuckled at the scene are probably not the kind of people who flirt with thoughts of mass murdering pigeons, it would be false to say the notion of dispensing with a handful of the birds now and then hasn't crossed some of our minds.After all, these birds are habitually guilty of pooping right next to human habitation, in courtyards, stairwells, and pretty much everywhere else. Their…

As It Happens6:09Canadian photographer captures extraordinary beauty of ordinary pigeons with award-winning shotLiron Gertsman usually doesn't bother taking pictures of pigeons.But when he spotted a pair of them preening each other affectionately in White Rock, B.C. — their iridescent green and purple feathers shimmering in the sunlight — he was moved to take out his camera. "I definitely overlooked pigeons for a while. But that changed when I captured this picture because I just saw them shining in a new light," the…

In a study conducted by the University of Iowa, researchers found that pigeons share similarities with artificial intelligence in their learning process. By subjecting pigeons to complex categorization tests, the birds were able to reach nearly 70% accuracy through repetitive, trial-and-error learning. This form of associative learning, where connections are made between objects or patterns, is also utilized by AI systems. Despite being considered a lower-level thinking technique, associative learning allows both pigeons…

In the years leading up to, and through, World War II, animal behaviorist researchers thoroughly embraced motion picture technology as a means to better capture the daily experiences of their test subjects — whether exploring the nuances of contemporary chimpanzee society or running macabre rat-eat-rat survival experiments to determine the Earth's "carrying capacity." However, once the studies had run their course, much of that scientific content was simply shelved.  In his new book, The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image…

If you thought delivery drones were a clever way to drop off items, then you'll love this new scheme organised by video game company SEGA. To celebrate the launch of real-time strategy game Company of Heroes 3, SEGA has enlisted the aid of homing pigeons to deliver copies of the new release. Perhaps even more bizarre is that Pub Landlord comedian Al Murray was also involved in the launch day stunt.Outside of his comedy career, Al Murray is a bit of a history buff, and has authored the book Command: How the Allies Learned…

No Ceilings is a Pigeons & Planes concert series that we’ve been doing with Move Forward Music since 2014. We’ve put on the first NYC headlining shows for artists like 6LACK, Noname, and Dominic Fike, and over the years our lineups have featured so many other acts during their rise: Smino, Denzel Curry, $NOT, Rico Nasty, Omar Apollo, Westside Boogie, Ravyn Lenae, Choker, Saba, LUCKI, Little Simz, Kevin Abstract, and more.Over the past couple of years, we’ve missed putting on live events dearly, but finally we’re back.…

It’s no secret that the grind to get discovered is real for all new artists in music. It’s time consuming, hard to get noticed, exhausting, but ultimately incredibly rewarding. Two months ago, Pigeons & Planes and Hornitos got creative and set out to celebrate artists who are bold and authentic by giving them a new way to showcase their talent and get spotlighted via the Take Your Shot program. After 15 days of open submissions, executives from both teams reviewed endless hours of music from artists who were willing…

See You Next Year is the first-ever Pigeons & Planes compilation album, in partnership with Big.Ass.Kids and distributed by ADA. The project is executive produced by Mike Dean and features original songs from Teezo Touchdown, Terry Presume, Redveil, Fana Hues, EKKSTACY, Wallice, Dreamer Isioma, Brevin Kim, Ben Reilly, Baird, and Sash. Read more about all the artists involved here.The See You Next Year album has been out for almost exactly 2 months now and the reception has been incredible. From the very start this…

We all have those thoughts, the ones that come to us in the small hours of the night. Who am I? Why are we here? What if my cellphone ran on vacuum tubes instead? Randall Munroe has the answer to, well, only one of those questions, but also the answers to a whole bunch of others collected together into What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Yes, that is a T-Rex eating an airplane. In the excerpt below Munroe examines what it would take to haul an average sized human in a chair…