British sparrow disappearance studied

February 6, 2006

British scientists say they might have determined why the house sparrow, Britain's most familiar bird, has been vanishing.

Many suggestions -- including magpies, cats, pesticides, climate change and home improvements -- have been made for the disappearance since 2000, when The Independent offered an $8,700 prize for the first properly accepted scientific answer.

Although the prize has never been claimed, The Independent says scientists might be getting close to a solution.

Kate Vincent, a postgraduate researcher at Leicester's De Montfort University, said her research appears to bear out experimentally that the sparrow disappearance might be due to a similar decline in the numbers of insects and other invertebrates that sparrow chicks need for the first few days of their lives. Although sparrows live on grain and other seeds, during their first week of life the chicks need animal protein in the shape of small grubs, flies, aphids and spiders.

The implication is that insects and other invertebrates are becoming much scarcer in Britain.

The Independent's prize is for a peer-reviewed paper in a scientific journal that accounts for the recent, sudden and precipitate decline of the house sparrow in Britain.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International

4.6 /5 (8 votes)  

Rank 4.6 /5 (8 votes)
Tags

Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

A frank discussion of the power law and linking correlation to causation

(PhysOrg.com) -- Michael Stumpf a mathematics professor at Imperial College in London, and Mason Porter a lecturer at Oxford have teamed together to write and publish a perspective piece in Science regarding the in ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created 18 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 7 | with audio podcast report

Employers feel no love for unscrupulous practice of 'service sweethearting'

A new study led by two Florida State University marketing professors finds that some frontline service employees who are rewarded for hikes in customer loyalty and satisfaction also may engage in "service ...

Other Sciences / Economics & Business

created 12 hours ago | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 5

The question of life in the ancient world

There’s a general feeling that we don’t get the Greeks – ancient or modern. Many, including heads of state like Angela Merkel, visibly shake their head in exasperation, rightly or wrongly, at ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created 18 hours ago | popularity 1.3 / 5 (3) | comments 4

Sonic Cradle lands spot in TED exhibition

A Simon Fraser University graduate student project that melds music, meditation and modern technology has landed a rare spot as an exhibit at TEDActive 2012 in Palm Springs, California this month.

Other Sciences / Other

created 14 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Do we no longer care about the collective good?

The Transformation of Solidarity, a book co-edited by University of Queensland sociologist Dr Mara Yerkes, tackles the subject of globalisation of national economies and societies where we put a high value ...

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Feb 06, 2012 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (8) | comments 39


Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)

The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline.

Google users warned of threat to smartphone wallets

Users of Google smartphone wallets were being warned on Friday that there is a way to crack pass codes intended to thwart thieves from going on illicit shopping sprees.

New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission

Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. They’re a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel — such as an optical fiber o ...

Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago

(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...

New power source discovered

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and RMIT University have made a breakthrough in energy storage and power generation.

Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Though most of today's nuclear reactors are cooled by water, we've long known that there are alternatives; in fact, the world's first nuclear-powered electricity in 1951 came from a reactor ...