Speed limit for birds
The northern goshawk is one of nature’s diehard thrill-seekers. The formidable raptor preys on birds and small mammals, speeding through tree canopies and underbrush to catch its quarry. With reflexes that rival a fighter pilot’s, the goshawk zips through a forest at high speeds, constantly adjusting its flight path to keep from colliding with trees and other obstacles. While speed is a goshawk’s greatest asset, researchers at MIT say the bird must observe a theoretical speed limit if it wants to avoid a crash. The researchers found that, given a certain density of obstacles, there exists a speed below which a bird — and any other flying object — has a fair chance of flying collision-free. Any faster, and a bird or aircraft is sure to smack into something, no matter how much information it has about its environment. A paper detailing the results has been accepted to the IEEE...