Woodpeckers show signs of possible brain damage, but that might not be a bad thing
With each peck, woodpeckers absorb more than ten times the force it would take to give a human a concussion. But they seem fine. Researchers examined the brains of woodpeckers in museum collections and saw that the brains showed a build-up of a protein that’s a sign of brain damage in humans. The woodpeckers might not have sustained brain damage themselves, though — the researchers think that protein build-up could possibly be beneficial to the birds. …read more
