Schooling and flocking

They say a fish can fall in love with a bird, but where would they live? However, when it comes to fluid dynamics, birds and fish come from more similar neighbourhoods than you might think. This podcast is about the physics of fish schooling and bird flocking and how these animals use their fluid environment - and each other - to get around. That's schooling and flocking. Dr Hassan Masoud is Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno and he recently co-authored a paper on the hydro dynamics of collective locomotion. Birds fly in flocks and fish swim in schoools - so why? It turns out that fluid dynamics can go a long way to answering that question. Dr Masoud talks to Meg Rosenburg in this podcast which first appeared on Physics Central, the 'physics buzz blog' of the of the American Physical Society. Photo: Starlings and sunset, Brighton by Joe Flintham