Pigeon Power smog blogs
p2p news / p2pnet: ‘Watch Out! Pigeons overhead!’ – will soon have new meaning for bloggers in California.
A flock of 20 bearing Global Positioning Satellite units, cellular communication devices and pollution sensors are to be released into the Silicon Valley’s smoggy skies under a plan hatched by Beatriz da Costa, an assistant professor of studio art, electrical engineering and computer science at UC Irvine, says the San Francisco Chronicle.
"As the birds fly from their release site in San Jose to their home loft, the sensors will analyze the air for nitrous oxide and carbon monoxide, da Costa says," the story goes on.
"The data will be pegged to their position through the GPS device and text-messaged every 30 seconds to a blog. With a few taps on their keyboards, people will be able to get a minute-by-minute air pollution index from a pigeon’s perspective."
Why pigeons? "Tradition and aesthetic appeal, da Costa said," according to the story. "Really, they were the first long-range communication devices. They’ve been used to send dispatches for centuries, and they were critical during wartime, getting messages through when nothing else could."
A pigeon racing enthusiastic is volunteering his birds, adds the San Francisco Chronicle.
Pigeons were used by both Axis and Allied troops during World War Two and a, "corps of pigeons that saved countless lives … with some birds even being awarded medals for gallantry," says John Piggott on his Australian forces On a Wing and a Prayer site (picture).
"The first of two Dickin Medals – the animals’ VC – was awarded to an Australian bird, whose flight to Madang saved the crew and valuable cargo of a boat that was foundering during a tropical storm. In driving rain the bird had covered 64 kilometres in 50 minutes. By the war’s end it had been on 23 missions," he says.
"The other medal went to a pigeon attached to American forces on Manus Island after a group of about 200 men were pinned down by the Japanese in April 1944. Suffering casualties and with gunfire raining down, they managed to release a pigeon carrying a plea for help. The bird arrived back at base 48 kilometres and 47 minutes later. Aircraft were sent to clear the area; the troops were saved."
Also See:
San Francisco Chronicle – Winging it, February 2, 2006
