Get yourself a woodpecker and peck his brain. How does a woodpecker's brain withstand constant knocking? In a perfectly straight line

A woodpecker makes about 12,000 headbutts a day, without causing any harm to itself! This amazing fact defied any explanation, because this creates an overload of 1 thousand times more than in free fall. It has been established that some species of woodpeckers, in the process of chiselling the bark of a tree, are able to move their beak at a speed of almost 25 km / h! In doing so, his head is thrown back with a huge negative acceleration, which is more than twice that which the astronauts experience during launch! More recently, a group of scientists from China were able to answer the question: “Why does the woodpecker not have a headache?”.

It turns out that the woodpecker has several unique abilities, and an interesting head structure.

For the first time, two American scientists, Ivan Schwob from the University of California at Davis and Philip May from the University of California at Los Angeles, managed to completely decipher the mechanism for protecting the head of a woodpecker from shaking, who in 2006 received the Ignobel Prize for this discovery (this is the prize that scientists receive for “discoveries that at first cause only laughter, and then make you think”; in the world of science, this prize is no less popular than the Nobel Prize). Biologists have studied this mechanism using the example of the golden-fronted woodpecker ( melanerpes aurifrons), living in the forests of the United States, however, it is believed that, apparently, such a security system is characteristic of all representatives of woodpeckers ( piciformes).

So why doesn't the woodpecker get a concussion. Firstly, because its super-hard beak strikes the trunk strictly perpendicular to the surface of the latter, does not bend or vibrate from impact. This ensures the coordinated work of the neck muscles - during "hollowing" work, only those muscles that are responsible for moving the head back and forth are active, and those that carry out lateral movements of the neck are inactive. That is, the woodpecker, purely physically, cannot deviate from the chosen course.

In addition, only a thin layer of intracranial fluid separates the skull of this bird and its brain, which does not allow the vibrations to gain enough strength to dangerously affect the brain. In addition, this liquid is quite viscous, therefore it immediately extinguishes all waves arising from the impact that can damage the most important nerve center.

Also important role in protecting the brain from concussions, the hyoid plays the most important element of the hyoid bone of birds, which in itself is more like cartilage than real bone tissue. In woodpeckers, it is extremely developed, very extensive and extended, located not only in the pharynx (as in mammals), but also enters the nasopharynx, turning around before that around the skull. That is, inside the skull of this bird there is an additional elastic shock absorber.

Moreover, as the study showed internal structure woodpecker cranial bones, almost all of them contain spongy porous tissue, which is an additional shock absorber. In this respect, the skull of a woodpecker is more like that of a chick than that of an adult bird (in which the proportion of cancellous bone in the bones is extremely small). So those vibrations that could not be “quenched” by the cranial fluid and the hyoid are “calmed down” by the spongy substance of the bones.

In addition, the woodpecker also has a kind of "safety belt" for the eyes - during the impact, the third eyelid (nictitating membrane) falls on the eye of this bird to protect the eyeball from vibration and prevent retinal detachment. So the vision of woodpeckers, despite the "hollowing" lifestyle, is always in order.

And, of course, in order to fit all these security systems in the skull, woodpeckers had to significantly reduce the surface of their brain. However, this did not make them dumber than other birds at all - on the contrary, the woodpecker is very smart and has quite complex territorial and nesting behavior. The fact is that, unlike mammals, in birds, the processes of higher rational activity do not occur at all in the cerebral cortex, but in the striatal bodies lying under it and in a layer called the hyperstriatum. And these parts of the brain initially do not occupy a very large area, because the neurons located in them are quite densely packed. Therefore, a woodpecker can easily shrink its brain without compromising its intelligence.

So, what can this smart bird teach people? Yes, at least how to develop perfect anti-shock structures. Similar work was recently done by American scientists from the Bioengineering Laboratory at the University of Berkeley. Careful study of time-lapse video "swotting" and tomography data of woodpeckers allowed them to develop an artificial damping (that is, providing safety) system similar to that of woodpeckers.

The role of a superhard beak in an artificial damper can be played by a strong outer shell - for example, steel or titanium. The function of the intracranial fluid in this device takes on the second, inner layer of metal, separated from the outer, steel, by an elastic layer. Under it is a layer of hard, but at the same time elastic rubber - an analogue of the hyoid. A "substitute" for spongy structures is to fill the entire empty volume under this rubber with densely packed glass beads about one millimeter in size. It has been proven that they very effectively “disperse” the impact energy and block the transmission of dangerous vibrations to the most valuable central part, for which all these systems exist - that is, a kind of “brain”.

Such a damper, according to the developers, can protect various fragile structures, such as electronics, from strong impacts. It is possible to place "black boxes" of aircraft, on-board computers of ships in such a shell, or use it in the development of new generation ejection devices. It is possible that this shell can also be used in the car body as an additional damper.

After creating a miniature prototype, the researchers conducted the first tests of this shell. They put it in a bullet and shot it with a gas gun into a thick sheet of aluminum. The shock overload reached 60,000 g, but the damper effectively protected the electronic stuffing hidden in it. Means, this system works quite effectively. Now the developers are working on the creation of the same large-sized damper.

Chinese scientists have investigated the protection of woodpeckers from shock and vibration, which, in their opinion, can help create new anti-shock materials and structures that can be used in various fields of human activity. Engineers of the State Laboratory of Structural Analysis for industrial equipment Dalian University found that the whole body of the woodpecker works as an excellent anti-shock mechanism, absorbing impact energy.

The bird pecks at a tree with a very high frequency (about 25 Hertz) and speed (about seven meters per second), which is 1000 times more than the earth's gravity. Scientists have made a special 3D computer model using a CT scan to understand exactly how a woodpecker protects its brain from damage.

Scientists have found that most of the impact energy is accumulated by the bird's body (99.7%) and only 0.3% falls on the woodpecker's head. Part of the impact energy is taken over by the beak of the bird, another part is taken by the hyoid bone of the bird. And that small part of the energy that still falls on the woodpecker's head is converted into heat, which causes the temperature of the brain to increase greatly.

The bird is forced to take breaks between pecking on the tree in order to lower this temperature.

A concussion is an unexpected short-term brain disorder. In most cases, a person suffers from a concussion after a hard blow to the head, a fall, or a bruise. There are cases when outwardly it is completely impossible to recognize a concussion, but it actually happened.

Remember that the signs of a concussion do not appear immediately. Only after a few weeks you may begin to feel a severe headache, weakness, dizziness, but thoughts of a concussion will not arise, because the other day you did not fall or hit your head.

Head contusion disrupts the reticular activating system. The reticular activating system is responsible for human consciousness, sound sleep, and it also controls the flow of information in the human head.

During an impact, the normal location of the brain changes and the work of nerve cells begins to fail. Nerve cells are directly connected to the reticular activating system, therefore, after a while, concussion symptoms begin to appear.

When to See a Doctor

If you have sustained a head injury, then you should consult a specialist anyway. Even if you don’t even have a scratch on the outside, it doesn’t mean that your brain is in perfect order inside. You may have a cerebral hemorrhage or you will get swelling, therefore, the doctor is obliged to examine you and make his conclusion.

You cannot give up on everything that happened and make a verdict on your own.

The signs of a concussion can be divided into different categories, so it makes sense that a concussion could affect your entire body.

Signs of a concussion that relate to thought processes and memory:

The person lost consciousness for a while and cannot recover.
The person cannot remember what happened to him.
The brain seems to be slightly sluggish and unable to function normally.
There is no concentration on anything.
A person cannot read a couple of lines or write a few words.

Signs of a concussion that affect the general condition of the body:

Headache feeling.
Violation of normal vision.
An attack of vomiting and nausea.
Dizziness.
Sensitive reaction to light.
Bad balance.
Prostration.

Signs of concussion that relate to the emotional state of a person:

Irritability for no good reason.
Feeling overwhelmed.
Frequent mood swings.
Feeling of lack of energy.

You can detect a concussion in your child by focusing on his behavior.

If a person, having hit his head, feels severe nausea, loses consciousness, refuses food and water, then you do not need to take him to the hospital, rather call an ambulance.

If you know that the person who received a head injury was drunk, then be sure to show him to a specialist, because in a state of intoxication he is unlikely to pay attention to the signs that have appeared.

What to do while waiting for an ambulance

Give the person something cold and apply it to the bruised area for twenty minutes.
Have the person lie flat on their side and not move if unconscious.
Never give a person medication.

It is important to know that loss of consciousness symbolizes a serious injury to the neck and head. Do not move the victim and calmly wait for the arrival of a specialist.

Symptoms of complications

As we wrote earlier, the symptoms of a concussion may not appear immediately. If, after visiting the first-aid post, the victim was allowed to go home, do not take your eyes off him, and if such symptoms appear, call an ambulance:

The headache is getting worse.
Marked lack of coordination.
Continued nausea.
A person cannot connect two words.
The pupil of one eye is enlarged.
The person cannot wake up.

How to cure a concussion

If a person received a mild concussion, then he can lie down at home, but if the form of his injury is moderate or severe, then it is worth going to the hospital and being under the supervision of specialists.

Also, the victim cannot be alone, because other signs of concussion may appear within 48 hours.

All you need is to stay calm, sleep more and rest. The patient is contraindicated in TV, books, games, everything on which you need to focus your attention. The only thing is that the victim can listen to music, but not too loudly and without headphones.

How to protect yourself from concussion

Most often, young children or teenagers suffer from a concussion because they frolic, run, ride a bike and fall.

Adults are also not immune from concussion, as they often get into accidents or get injured at work. Professional athletes are even more prone to concussion, especially if they are engaged in boxing or various fights.

There is a feeling that no one is safe from a concussion, but there are generally accepted safety measures that will help you avoid an accident:

When playing sports, do not forget about the helmet.
On a motorcycle or bicycle, also sit in a helmet.
When doing boxing, judo and other things, be under the supervision of an instructor.
When driving, do not forget about the seat belt.
Be careful on steps in winter.
Standing on a chair or ladder, keep your balance.
If you see a puddle on the floor, wipe it off so as not to slip.

(Picus viridis). The length of his tongue is no less than 10 cm - this is almost a third of the bird's body length! With such a tongue, you can easily extract your favorite food - ants and their pupae - from the passages of the anthill. The tip of the woodpecker's tongue has notches that allow you to prick the larvae like a spear, or hairs covered with sticky mucus secreted in the salivary glands.

Of course, the tongue is an important organ for birds, it serves to collect food, manipulate it and swallow it. Its structure varies from different types birds depending on the nature of the food they eat. The structure of the tongue of birds is interesting in that it is supported by the bony hyoid apparatus. The body of the hyoid apparatus passes inside the base of the tongue, and external muscles are attached to the horns. The internal muscles control the movement of the bones of the hyoid apparatus relative to each other, thereby determining the shape of the tongue. The horns of the hyoid apparatus and the muscles attached to them are enclosed within a two-layer connective tissue sheath with a lubricating fluid between the layers. When these muscles contract, the horns slide inside the membrane, and as a result, the tongue is pushed out of the oral cavity or retracted into it.

In most birds, the horns of the hyoid apparatus are relatively short. If the tongue is able to protrude far enough from the beak, the horns are long and wrap around the skull. This happens in various birds that feed on nectar: hummingbirds, honeyeaters, sunflowers, flower beetles, as well as woodpeckers, long tongue which allows you to get insects from under the bark of trees or ants from the passages of an anthill.

The longest tongue of woodpeckers of the genus picus(these are green and gray-haired woodpeckers - the inhabitants of our forests) and American avocets woodpeckers ( Сolaptes), which also like to eat ants and their pupae. The horns of the hyoid apparatus of these birds wrap around the skull, enter the right nostril and reach the tip of the upper jaw! And the hairy woodpecker living in the New World ( Picoides villosus) the picture is even more amazing - the horns wrap around the right eye! This is due to the structure of the beak - it is flattened, and there is simply no room in the internal cavity. The shortest tongue is in sucking woodpeckers ( Sphyrapicus) that feed on tree sap. They also have shorter horns.

Interestingly, newly hatched woodpeckers have short horns, like many other birds. As the chick grows, they grow forward along with the connective tissue sheath and muscles and reach the nasal cavity. Before leaving the nest (about 20–28 days), the chicks are fed by their parents, and they do not need a long tongue.

Julia Mikhnevich

Translation by Pavel Volkov

The original text is here:
http://omega.med.yale.edu/~rjr38/Woodpecker.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodpecker/woodpecker.html

AT Currently, a number of creationists and creationist organizations have created websites touting the woodpecker as an example of an organism that "could not have evolved."
By making such a claim, they presented a great amount of information concerning the anatomy and physiology of the woodpecker, especially relating to its surprisingly long tongue, which is either distorted or clearly false.
The purpose of this site is to offer accurate information to those who might otherwise take false creationist claims at face value.

Woodpeckers (family Picidae) are well-known birds whose unique anatomy allows them to exploit unusual ecological niches. Many species of this family exhibit interesting adaptations that allow them to punch holes in hard, unrotten wood in search of insects and other prey.
The woodpecker's tongue is one of the most exciting things among these adaptations. Unlike the human tongue, which is primarily a muscular organ, the tongues of birds are rigidly supported by a cartilaginous skeleton called the hyoid apparatus. All higher vertebrates have a hyoid in one form or another; you can feel the "horns" of your own U-shaped hyoid bone by squeezing the top of your throat between your thumb and forefinger. Our hyoid serves as an attachment site for some of the muscles in our throat and tongue.

The Y-shaped hyoid apparatus of birds, however, extends right up to the very tip of their tongue. The junction at "Y" is just in front of the throat, and this is where most of the hyoid muscles attach. Two long structures, the "horns" of the hyoid, grow posterior to this region and form attachment sites for the traction muscles that originate in the mandible. The "horns" of the hyoid of some species of woodpeckers have a very impressive structure, as they can extend to the crown of the head, and in some species they stretch around the orbit or even extend to the nasal cavity.
The unusual shape of the woodpecker's "tongue skeleton" has inspired creationists to use it as an example of an entity too bizarre to evolve by random mutations that produce viable intermediates. However, as the information below shows, the woodpecker's strange language is really just an elongated version of the same that all birds have, in fact an excellent example of how anatomical features can be transformed into new forms by mutation and natural selection.
Some of the creationist websites and articles I've read make the claim that the woodpecker's tongue is "fixed in the right nostril" or "grows back" from the nasal cavity. The original connections between the woodpecker's hyoid apparatus and the rest of its body are the muscles and ligaments that attach the hyoid to the bone of the lower jaw, the cartilage of the throat, and the base (not the top) of the skull - the same state of affairs as all other birds. In adults of several species, the horns of the hyoid may eventually grow forward and grow into the nasal cavity from above - however, the hyoid and tongue certainly do not grow OUT of the nasal cavity.

Figure 3a: jawbone and hyoid apparatus of domestic chicken ( Gallus gallus) (reproduced from

Figure 3b: hyoid apparatus and associated musculature and internal organs red-bellied woodpecker ( Melanerpes carolinus) (reproduced from )
Compare with chicken hyoid (see above). Also note the branchiomandibular muscles (Mbm), which wrap around the hyoid horns and attach to the jaw. Features of attachment in the avocet woodpecker are the same, but the horns and muscles of Mbm are longer.

The avian tongue proper covers the anterior part of the hyoid apparatus; its posterior parts, including the hyoid horns, function as supporting structures.
The length of the hyoid horns various birds changes very slightly, but they are all very similar functionally. The domestic chicken (Figure 3a) is a well-studied example of a bird that is not closely related to the woodpecker but still shares all the essential features of the woodpecker hyoid (Figure 3b).
Hyoid horns of a chicken and the sheath of bundles in which they are located ( fascia vaginalis– Fvg) stretch back on both sides of the throat, then curve behind the hen's ears towards the back of the head (Figure 3a).
The sheath itself is formed from a sac of lubricating fluid into which the horns grow as they develop. This lubrication gives the horns some freedom to slide forward or backward on the sheath when the tongue protrudes or retracts into the mouth. There are several elastic ligaments between the sheath and the horns, but, of course, they are not “tightly” attached to the skull.
Note the attachment points for the branchiomandibular muscles (labeled "Mbm"), which join near the ends of the hyoid horns, extend along the "sheath" and insert at the middle of the jawbone (the attachment sites are labeled "Mbma" and "Mbmp"). These are the muscles that move the horns down the sheath, pressing them against the skull, and thereby pulling forward the stiff bird tongue.

Thus, the paired hyoid horns in a bird serve only as an attachment site for muscles that actually begin in the lower jaw - the contraction of these muscles pulls the horns and the entire hyoid apparatus forward and outward relative to the skull, pushing the tongue out of the mouth like a spear.
Once this notion is understood, it becomes apparent that lengthening the hyoid horns and attached muscles, without any other change in general structure or function, would be guaranteed to give the bird a longer tongue and enable it to protrude that tongue farther out of the mouth. In fact, this is exactly what happens as a young woodpecker matures.

People, one might say, have been tormented by a mystery for centuries: how do woodpeckers not go crazy, chiseling trees all day long? And now scientists have finally deciphered the mechanism of brain protection in these amazing birds. Can this discovery be used to create safety equipment for humans - for example, in the design of cars?

Woodpecker, indeed, apparently, never suffers from headaches. And he doesn't have a concussion either. For a long time, scientists could not understand how he did it. After all, it has been established that the woodpecker hammers hard surface at a speed of 20 beats per second, exerting a force 1.2 thousand times greater than the Earth's gravity. For comparison, this is equal to the force of impact on the surface of the Earth by a jet plane crashing into it at full speed. None of the people would have survived such a terrible blow. And the woodpecker does not care, every day he voluntarily exposes himself to these monstrous overloads and nothing - he is alive, healthy and cheerful.

For the first time, two American scientists, Ivan Schwob from the University of California at Davis and Philip May from the University of California at Los Angeles, managed to completely decipher the mechanism for protecting the head of a woodpecker from shaking, who in 2006 received the Ignobel Prize for this discovery (this is the prize that scientists receive for "discoveries that at first cause only laughter, and then make you think"; in the world of science, this prize is no less popular than the Nobel Prize). Biologists have studied this mechanism using the example of the golden-fronted woodpecker ( melanerpes aurifrons), living in the forests of the United States, however, it is believed that, apparently, such a security system is characteristic of all representatives of woodpeckers ( piciformes).

So why doesn't the woodpecker get a concussion. Firstly, because its super-hard beak strikes the trunk strictly perpendicular to the surface of the latter, does not bend or vibrate from impact. This is ensured by the coordinated work of the neck muscles - during "hollowing" work, only those muscles that are responsible for moving the head back and forth are active, and those that carry out lateral movements of the neck are inactive. That is, the woodpecker, purely physically, cannot deviate from the chosen course.

Also important in protecting the brain from concussions is the hyoid, the most important element of the hyoid bone of birds, which itself is more cartilage than real bone tissue. In woodpeckers, it is extremely developed, very extensive and extended, located not only in the pharynx (as in mammals), but also enters the nasopharynx, turning around before that around the skull. That is, inside the skull of this bird there is an additional elastic shock absorber.

In addition, as the study of the internal structure of the cranial bones of the woodpecker showed, almost all of them contain spongy porous tissue, which is an additional shock absorber. In this respect, the skull of a woodpecker is more like that of a chick than that of an adult bird (in which the proportion of cancellous bone in the bones is extremely small). So those vibrations that could not be "quenched" by the cranial fluid and the hyoid are "sedated" by the spongy substance of the bones.

In addition, the woodpecker also has a kind of "safety belt" for the eyes - during the impact, the third eyelid (nictitating membrane) falls over the eye of this bird to protect the eyeball from vibration and prevent retinal detachment. So the vision of woodpeckers, despite the "hollowing" lifestyle, is always in order.

And, of course, in order to fit all these security systems in the skull, woodpeckers had to significantly reduce the surface of their brain. However, they did not become dumber than other birds at all - on the contrary, the woodpecker is very smart and has quite complex territorial and nesting behavior. The fact is that, unlike mammals, in birds, the processes of higher rational activity do not occur at all in the cerebral cortex, but in the striatal bodies lying under it and in a layer called the hyperstriatum. And these parts of the brain initially do not occupy a very large area, because the neurons located in them are quite densely packed. Therefore, a woodpecker can easily shrink its brain without compromising its intelligence.

The role of a superhard beak in an artificial damper can be played by a strong outer shell - for example, steel or titanium. The function of the intracranial fluid in this device is taken over by the second, inner layer of metal, separated from the outer, steel, by an elastic layer. Under it is a layer of hard, but at the same time elastic rubber - an analogue of the hyoid. A "substitute" for spongy structures is to fill the entire empty volume under this rubber with densely packed glass beads about one millimeter in size. It has been proven that they very effectively "disperse" the impact energy and block the transmission of dangerous vibrations to the most valuable central part, for which all these systems exist - that is, a kind of "brain".

Such a damper, according to the developers, can protect various fragile structures, such as electronics, from strong impacts. It is possible to place "black boxes" of aircraft, on-board computers of ships in such a shell, or use it in the development of ejection devices of a new generation. It is possible that this shell can also be used in the car body as an additional damper.

After creating a miniature prototype, the researchers conducted the first tests of this shell. They put it in a bullet and shot it with a gas gun into a thick sheet of aluminum. The shock overload reached 60,000 g, but the damper effectively protected the electronic stuffing hidden in it. This means that this system works quite effectively. Now the developers are working on the creation of the same large-sized damper.

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