Clever Keas, tick-borne meat allergies, cooling tinnies with lasers, and whistling pigeons

Thursday, 23 November 2017 - 8:30am to 9:00am
Clockwise from top left: NZ bird of the year, the Kea (Nestor notabilis) attacking a car (photo by Andrea Schaffer); a female paralysis tick (Ixodes holocyclus) engorged with blood (photo by Alan R Walker); the microscopic aluminium drum cooled with lasers (image by Teufel/NIST); a Crested Pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes) showing the special thin feather that makes a whistling noise when it flies (photo by Murray et al./ANU).

It's a big show this week: Manisha tells us all about the the New Zealand bird of the year, the Kea, and how intelligent it is. Also, Claire frightens us with news about paralysis ticks spreading allergy to red meat, as if paralysis wasn't bad enough. Stu explains how to use lasers to cool teeny tiny aluminium cans down to near absolute zero; and Chris finds out how and why crested pigeons make a whistling noise when they take off.

For more about the allergies spread by ticks, see the Tick Induced Allergies Research & Awareness website, www.tiara.org.au

And here are a couple of excellent videos showing just how smart keas are:

Claire, Chris & Stu
Thursday 8:30am to 9:00am
Entertaining news and discussion about research that has impact on society and providing a wide range of science and technology news. Distributed nationally on the Community Radio Network.

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Chris Lassig, Stuart Burns and Claire Farrugia and others.

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