Cranes that go bump in the night

Flying is a dangerous business. Birds must dodge trees, powerlines, windows. Anyone who has seen a robin flit at full speed into a dense thicket knows birds have an extraordinary ability to avoid obstacles if they can see them.  But some obstacles seem particularly challenging.  This episode's study looks at a single 260 meter section of powerline into which hundreds of Sandhill Cranes crash annually.  Can knowledge from fundamental research help us come up with practical solutions? And how do researchers manage questions of ethics when testing solutions? Join us for a chat about "Near-ultraviolet light reduced Sandhill Crane collisions with a power line by 98%" (Dwyer et al, 2019). Find the correction to the article here.