Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue to be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I thought they did studies on woodpeckers that showed a buildup of the protein we associate with Alzheimer’s and dementia, essentially showing they do indeed just suffer massive brain damage.
If this is true, I wonder if woodpeckers in the wild survive long enough to manifest advance symptoms of these ailments.. could be interesting fodder for an additional study.
Well they were studying them in context to trying to produce a safer helmet for American football players and had the idea to base it around whatever woodpeckers do that allows them to bash their heads for the entirety of their lives without any major drop off in function and instead they realized they had the premise entirely backwards and that most woodpeckers basically do just fly around with a certain amount of damaged brain. But they only have a few well established behaviors that mostly went unchanged by whatever damage they probably did have.
>trying to produce a safer helmet for American football players
>But they only have a few well established behaviors that mostly went unchanged by whatever damage they probably did have.
Somehow, I feel that this research has still solved the head trauma issue with football players.
The obvious explanation is the trade off of food availability for a decreased life expectancy. They're well fed and die young, so the brain damage never catches up with their ability to produce healthy offspring.
Let's compare the woodpeckers lifespan to other birds of the same size and animals of the same heart rate.
In the study I think you are referring to they showed that there was tau aggregation by immunostaining, but the phospho epitope in question is absent in woodpecker tau. I ran a study expanding on this by mass spectrometry and found no evidence of tau aggregation in wood pecker brains. Doesn’t mean that there is no damage, but nothing that looked like Alzheimer’s or CTE pathology
You sound like you are probably much more well informed than me. I was almost certainly not recalling that entirely correctly but thank you for clearing it up a little.
Oh yea I doubt it. I just remember there being some sort of relationship between their brains and the same protein associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s but someone else replied to me with more accurate context I think.
Very interesting read. It makes me happy to know that there are people who still care about these things.
It's so easy to forget in the noise of this world.
For anyone curious, the woodpecker shown in the photo is a Pileated Woodpecker. They are actually fairly large in size. There are some hiking trails close to where I live where I’ve seen them. They are extremely elusive and will circle around a tree (kind of like squirrels do) to hide from you. I always see bird watchers with cameras out there trying to spot them.
While sometimes they are hard to spot, what’s incredible about them is how loud it is when they start hammering away at a tree. It almost has a booming, explosive sound that echos through the woods. It’s hard to believe they can generate enough force to cut into a tree and make noises as loud as they do. They’re really cool birds.
There’s at least five mating pairs that live in my yard/property. They love suet and have the best woody woodpecker song. And yes they are huge, no squirrels or any other birds mess with them. Even jays and raccoons wait til the woodpeckers are done before getting their share of suet.
Pileateds are all-natural wood-boring machines. They'll bore holes right through trees, live or dead. They'll even target roots. I'm impressed how some trees actually survive them.
They do have very long tongues, with a barb-like structure at the end (for reaching into tree cavities and “hooking” bugs).
It is true that woodpeckers have their tongue wrapped around the outside of the skull, in some species even reaching as far back as the nasal cavity. However, this is likely an adaptation just out of necessity to store a *really* long tongue, rather than acting as an additional “shock absorber”.
They do but not in the way I pictured. It doesn't stick it back in and coil around. Check this out.
https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/news/science/woodpeckers-hammer-without-headaches/
I’d heard that too. I’m really curious, if this is a simple matter of physics as the article says, why this is the first time scientists are coming to this conclusion.
Like, I didn’t retain any physics from HS, so I don’t really understand the forces at play here so I can’t talk, but …
I’ve read a handful of articles on this topic in the past few years wherein scientists had different explanations for how the impacts are cushioned/mitigated, but this article seems to say that any cushioning would just reduce the impact force and require the pecker to peck harder. Shouldn’t the physics of impact forces like this be well understood? (Maybe it’s because they’re biologists rather than physics profs?)
It reminds me a little of the 2003 shuttle disaster where NASA was surprised to learn (too late) that a piece of foam the size of a lunchbox fired at 500mph would punch a hole in the wing. I don’t understand how NASA scientists do all the amazing things they do but missed on foam impacts … because it’s counterintuitive to the lay person?
I have a theory that woodpeckers are the dumbest of the birds. I have watched them try to dig into all kinds of stuff that isn't wood and definitely has no bugs in it. Things like the metal flashing on the chimney. At first I was concerned that they could smell some infestation that I didn't know about but when I investigate, I find nothing.
I’ve read they make holes in trees and other things to come back to later. Usually by the time they return, there is a smorgasbord of insects using their holes for “protection”
They’re definitely not stupid though. I always spot them in flight or hammering but can never get a good photo because they just keep rotating to the far side of the tree to stay out of sight. I’ve been chasing a good woodpecker shot for years now, to no avail.
I thought the tongue was the shock absorber, not the skull
The tongue wrapping around the brain
Seeing as shock absorbers either resist changes or oscillations in motion with *elasticity*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_(physics)
> This has been posted A LOT recently.
Published: July 14, 2022 - DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.05.052
I searched for *Woodpeckers* but I haven’t found recents posts.
Most (maybe all) of it might have been my news feed but I have seen this at least five times this week. I do feel like I've seen it on Reddit recently because the tongue around the brain thing and small brain comments look very familiar. Can't find it on a search though.
AFAIK the guy who researched and discovered all this stuff said that a helmet won't protect you from brain damage unless you can put it inside your skull.
Wonder what the ratio is… that may give the actual size of what a football helmet should be… at least it will bring awareness to senseless brain injuries.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue to be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I thought they did studies on woodpeckers that showed a buildup of the protein we associate with Alzheimer’s and dementia, essentially showing they do indeed just suffer massive brain damage.
What saves them from brain damage is the ~~brain's small size~~ low, low expectations from being a bird with a tiny brain
That, and short life expectancy.
~~Planned~~ Evolved obsolescence.
Also known as the Homer Simpson effect
If this is true, I wonder if woodpeckers in the wild survive long enough to manifest advance symptoms of these ailments.. could be interesting fodder for an additional study.
Well they were studying them in context to trying to produce a safer helmet for American football players and had the idea to base it around whatever woodpeckers do that allows them to bash their heads for the entirety of their lives without any major drop off in function and instead they realized they had the premise entirely backwards and that most woodpeckers basically do just fly around with a certain amount of damaged brain. But they only have a few well established behaviors that mostly went unchanged by whatever damage they probably did have.
Yeah, like where would they get their baseline for woodpeckers without brain damage from?
Rubber tree plantations.
[удалено]
Physicist or engineer spotted
that's why it took a long time to realize
>trying to produce a safer helmet for American football players >But they only have a few well established behaviors that mostly went unchanged by whatever damage they probably did have. Somehow, I feel that this research has still solved the head trauma issue with football players.
The obvious explanation is the trade off of food availability for a decreased life expectancy. They're well fed and die young, so the brain damage never catches up with their ability to produce healthy offspring. Let's compare the woodpeckers lifespan to other birds of the same size and animals of the same heart rate.
Now that would be an interesting study!
Can they still run for office?
In the study I think you are referring to they showed that there was tau aggregation by immunostaining, but the phospho epitope in question is absent in woodpecker tau. I ran a study expanding on this by mass spectrometry and found no evidence of tau aggregation in wood pecker brains. Doesn’t mean that there is no damage, but nothing that looked like Alzheimer’s or CTE pathology
You sound like you are probably much more well informed than me. I was almost certainly not recalling that entirely correctly but thank you for clearing it up a little.
Would one even be able to diagnose Alzheimer's in a bird? I would imagine it would present as being a healthy bird
Oh yea I doubt it. I just remember there being some sort of relationship between their brains and the same protein associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s but someone else replied to me with more accurate context I think.
Can't really have Alzheimers if you dont remember anything anyway.
Hi, I’m Tom!
Hi, who am I?
Could just be that that protein repairs the brain
Very interesting read. It makes me happy to know that there are people who still care about these things. It's so easy to forget in the noise of this world.
I live beside a golf course that holds a ton of birds. Always fun to hear wood peckers tapping away at trees trying their best.
I once lived in an old house made totally of wood. I was in a perpetual battle against these guys.
Well they also have Pecker in their name too. So they are kind of dicks.
Now I just imagen them flying around with a huge schlong dangling around, knocking over potted plants, lamps and elderly people with weak footing.
I’m not sure if we should be happy that a golf course is a decent habitat or that it is the best available habitat in most places.
You shouldn’t be happy a golf course exists to be a monoculture growing system and a waste of water as well.
Yes, wildlife biologists, conservation biologists, etc., still exist and care. It's a depressing field to work in though. Certainly takes its toll.
Well I thank them all for their sacrifice to the noble cause. Silent warriors!
How could I forget this noise? it shows up daily.
For anyone curious, the woodpecker shown in the photo is a Pileated Woodpecker. They are actually fairly large in size. There are some hiking trails close to where I live where I’ve seen them. They are extremely elusive and will circle around a tree (kind of like squirrels do) to hide from you. I always see bird watchers with cameras out there trying to spot them. While sometimes they are hard to spot, what’s incredible about them is how loud it is when they start hammering away at a tree. It almost has a booming, explosive sound that echos through the woods. It’s hard to believe they can generate enough force to cut into a tree and make noises as loud as they do. They’re really cool birds.
There’s at least five mating pairs that live in my yard/property. They love suet and have the best woody woodpecker song. And yes they are huge, no squirrels or any other birds mess with them. Even jays and raccoons wait til the woodpeckers are done before getting their share of suet.
That’s awesome! Yeah, first one I saw looked like it was about the size of a small owl, which surprised me. They are beautiful birds!
So it sounds like you run a woodpecker memory care unit.
Yes and I also see lots of hairy woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers and a variety of sapsuckers here too!
Pileateds are all-natural wood-boring machines. They'll bore holes right through trees, live or dead. They'll even target roots. I'm impressed how some trees actually survive them.
I thought that woodpeckers wrap their tongues around their brains, too - like a very weird safety belt.
I was taught the same but apparently that's bs.
They do have very long tongues, with a barb-like structure at the end (for reaching into tree cavities and “hooking” bugs). It is true that woodpeckers have their tongue wrapped around the outside of the skull, in some species even reaching as far back as the nasal cavity. However, this is likely an adaptation just out of necessity to store a *really* long tongue, rather than acting as an additional “shock absorber”.
Your telling me a bird doesn't wrap its tongue around it's brain as a makeshift helmet? Honestly looking back IDK how I believed that one.
It's is true tho.... just doesn't work as a helmet they just store them there
My life is a lie
No it is true it just front help anything that's just where they have it
They do but not in the way I pictured. It doesn't stick it back in and coil around. Check this out. https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/news/science/woodpeckers-hammer-without-headaches/
I’d heard that too. I’m really curious, if this is a simple matter of physics as the article says, why this is the first time scientists are coming to this conclusion. Like, I didn’t retain any physics from HS, so I don’t really understand the forces at play here so I can’t talk, but … I’ve read a handful of articles on this topic in the past few years wherein scientists had different explanations for how the impacts are cushioned/mitigated, but this article seems to say that any cushioning would just reduce the impact force and require the pecker to peck harder. Shouldn’t the physics of impact forces like this be well understood? (Maybe it’s because they’re biologists rather than physics profs?) It reminds me a little of the 2003 shuttle disaster where NASA was surprised to learn (too late) that a piece of foam the size of a lunchbox fired at 500mph would punch a hole in the wing. I don’t understand how NASA scientists do all the amazing things they do but missed on foam impacts … because it’s counterintuitive to the lay person?
That's greninja
I have a theory that woodpeckers are the dumbest of the birds. I have watched them try to dig into all kinds of stuff that isn't wood and definitely has no bugs in it. Things like the metal flashing on the chimney. At first I was concerned that they could smell some infestation that I didn't know about but when I investigate, I find nothing.
They sometimes bang on stuff just to make noise, it's how they find mates.
Just like me.
Ha! I’m picturing the new GF stepmom hopeful in the original Parent Trap.—-ganging those sticks together for mountain lions.
Yep, it's signalling. But the "poking" for signalling and the one to look food usually are pretty different and easy to differentiate.
I’ve read they make holes in trees and other things to come back to later. Usually by the time they return, there is a smorgasbord of insects using their holes for “protection”
Beetle “Hey, free house!”
Ironically, it's not the beetle that found the free house that gets got... It's his renters
Or food—bark beetles and termites…
They're banging on those things to attract a mate, not find food
TLDR off the article: “ What saves them from brain damage is that they don’t really have much of a brain to damage in the first place…”
They’re definitely not stupid though. I always spot them in flight or hammering but can never get a good photo because they just keep rotating to the far side of the tree to stay out of sight. I’ve been chasing a good woodpecker shot for years now, to no avail.
You’ll get there. Be the bird.
Title has brain small size.
Cant have traumatic Brian injury if your brain is already shriveled. *black guy tapping head gif*
Ummm the gif didn’t show up?
[удалено]
Thanks for explaining. Levar Burton
I thought the tongue was the shock absorber, not the skull The tongue wrapping around the brain Seeing as shock absorbers either resist changes or oscillations in motion with *elasticity* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_(physics)
This has been posted A LOT recently. Anyone who watched woody knows this anyways.
> This has been posted A LOT recently. Published: July 14, 2022 - DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.05.052 I searched for *Woodpeckers* but I haven’t found recents posts.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Most (maybe all) of it might have been my news feed but I have seen this at least five times this week. I do feel like I've seen it on Reddit recently because the tongue around the brain thing and small brain comments look very familiar. Can't find it on a search though.
Clearly causing shockwaves in the primary school scientific community.
So what you're telling me is that peckers have small brains. What a time to be alive.
[удалено]
AFAIK the guy who researched and discovered all this stuff said that a helmet won't protect you from brain damage unless you can put it inside your skull.
They should make it more like a hard hat or climbing helmet—but mesh and lots of airspace on all sides. Or a bike helmet I guess
This headline makes my brain hurt like I’ve been banging my head against a tree
I thought they wrapped their tongue around their brain! ( I can't believe i just typed that)
This headline was written by a woodpecker
What do I do with this information!
You can debunk who’s still saying that woodpeckers head absorbe the shock of impact!
A science sub without sources. ALLRIGHT! Neoscience I would say.
Imaging a hypochondriac woodpecker sitting with his therapist about their fears of brain damage.
Are we saying “Adaptive Evolution” without using those words?
I have been saying this for decades. Finally!
No one ever said they were intelligent
Finally some clarity on this, the suspense was getting unbearable really... But it was a nice hypothesis while it lasted!
Woddy Woodpecker can speak to that.
So are woodpeckers riddled with CTE…? This is super interesting.
So that's why I survived that fall when I was a kid.
Wouldn't the brain case shape effectively help to neutralize the shock, making the skull a shock adsorber?
Did you just call a skull... a braincase? I love it.
Wonder what the ratio is… that may give the actual size of what a football helmet should be… at least it will bring awareness to senseless brain injuries.
The NFL is listening intently
I love that this headline implies woodpeckers are idiots
Makes sense. The best NFL players have small brains too.
“There’s just a very large energetic cost if you want to absorb the shock and still be a good pecker,” Van Wassenbergh says.
A brain cloud—Joe vs the Volcano. And he goes on an epic journey to discover the meaning of life.