The video is of a flock of starlings, called a murmuration.
Notice how they swoop and turn, rising falling, speeding and slowing not just along a single flight path to safety or food or shelter, but for reason unknown. They move in groups and pieces without every crashing into one another as though dancing to the directions of an invisible choreographer.
Notice how they swoop and turn, rising falling, speeding and slowing not just along a single flight path to safety or food or shelter, but for reason unknown. They move in groups and pieces without every crashing into one another as though dancing to the directions of an invisible choreographer.
The following is from an article in
Wired.com, a very much not religious online publication:
What makes possible
the uncanny coordination of these murmurations, as starling flocks are so
beautifully known? Until recently, it was hard to say. Scientists had to wait
for the tools of high-powered video analysis and computational modeling. And
when these were finally
applied to starlings, they revealed patterns known less from biology than
cutting-edge physics.
Starling flocks, it
turns out, are best
described with equations of “critical transitions” — systems that are
poised to tip, to be almost instantly and completely transformed, like metals
becoming magnetized or liquid turning to gas. Each starling in a flock is
connected to every other. When a flock turns in unison, it’s a phase
transition.
…. What’s
complicated, or at least unknown, is how criticality is created and maintained.
It’s easy for a
starling to turn when its neighbor turns — but what physiological mechanisms
allow it to happen almost simultaneously in two birds separated by hundreds of
feet and hundreds of other birds? That remains to be discovered, and the
implications extend beyond birds. Starlings may simply be the most visible and
beautiful example of a biological criticality that also seems to operate in proteins and
neurons, hinting at universal principles yet to be understood.
---- from The Startling Science of a
Starling Murmuration BY BRANDON KEIM,
writer on wired.com (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/starling-flock/
)
Universal
principle, huh?
A universal principle applied to the actions of avalanches, the formation of crystals, the magnetizing of metals, the evaporation of liquids, the operation of proteins and neurons----- and the flight of certain species of birds.
“.....hinting at universal principles yet to be understood....”
Maybe Somebody already understands them.
Psalm
104: 24 O
Lord, how manifold are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them ALL.
The earth is full of Your possessions
---Anderson
T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer
and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of the
Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership development for
the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
To hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more
about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .
If this message helps or touches you, please help
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Mail all contributions to :
Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116
Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116
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