this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2025
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Yes, you can store data on a bird — enthusiast converts PNG to bird-shaped waveform, teaches young starling to recall file at up to 2MB/s (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 3 days ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
153 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A music and science lover has revealed that some birds can store and retrieve digital data. Specifically, he converted a PNG sketch of a bird into an audio waveform, then tried to embed it in the song memory of a young starling, ready for later retrieval as an image. Benn Jordan made a video of this feat, sharing it on YouTube, and according to his calculations, the bird-based data transfer system could be capable of around 2 MB/s data speeds.

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[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 8 points 2 days ago (4 children)

?Fun? fact: In a steampunk world, birds would serve as CPUs. America experimented with using pigeons for bomb guidance. As it turned out, three birds pecking at an image had pretty good accuracy. They ultimately lost out to silicon, due to the size, maintenance, and training time.

[–] staph@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

Fun speculation: we are CPUs for the information systems we inhabit, like scientific method, political ideologies, etc.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

There was an amusing short story about a guy who could do actual math in his head (I think it was by Asimov).

Edit: found it, it's "The Feeling Of Power" by Asimov.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 days ago

They ultimately lost out to silicon

for now....

[–] Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

They ultimately lost out to silicon

Fuckin computers taking birds' jobs.