the wise Crow - all about Construction Engineering !

When you hold a dabba Camera, you tend to fantasize to be a photographer, start looking for beautiful objects – while you dream of a Peacock, you get to see a Crow !! 

 

You find so many of them as you go to your terrace. A crow is a bird of the genus Corvus, or more broadly a synonym for all of Corvus. What may be less known is that crows and ravens live in every type of ecosystem around the world, from the hottest deserts to the most forbidding frozen tundras. Just how they were able to reach and thrive in every niche on the planet has been a mystery.

 

Science is about making the unrecognizable recognizable, turning the unfamiliar into familiar, and seeing a thread of unity behind dissimilar phenomena. Some creative ideas can’t be executed without science. Leonardo da Vinci’s remarkable capacity for careful observation made him an astonishing artist and a brilliant scientist. He was able to compare the speed of a bird’s wing movement downwards and upwards. He noticed the differences between arteries carrying blood from the heart and the veins bringing the blood back, so as to draw accurate models of the human circulatory system. His portrait paintings were groundbreaking because Leonardo was the first to show accurate musculature in the face and neck.

 

Is engineering an art or a science?  The debate would continue and the less informed like me would understand neither !!   with the careful application of specific rules and factors, it’s a broad discipline based on scientific and mathematic principles. Engineers are special breed !  - Engineering is a discipline dedicated to problem solving. Our built environment and infrastructure, the devices we use to communicate, the processes that manufacture our medicines, have all been designed, assembled or managed by an engineer. Sometimes referred to as “The Science of the Art of Construction,” civil engineering is often the unsung hero of a project; without it, buildings and cities would cease to exist in a way that’s operable or sustainable.

 

Although the projects they work on have vastly changed over the centuries, civil engineering is arguably the oldest engineering discipline. The design of the built environment began the first time someone placed a roof over their head or laid a tree trunk across a river to make it easier to get across. New materials and technology have allowed civil engineers to think even more creatively, expanding their opportunities to expand and enhance the built environment. From impossibly tall towers to stunning bridges and captivating airports, civil engineers push the limits of what’s possible. At the same time, civil engineers are bound by their ethics of professional practice to ensure that all designs are safe, practical, and economical.

 

Crows and ravens have taken over the world in part because they're so big and brainy, new research suggests.  .. .. .. and here is a Crow on a Civil Engineering project, of constructing its nest with steel wires !!

Researchers found that crows and ravens have bigger wingspans, brains and bodies than other birds in the Corvidae family. "We hypothesize that these three very convenient combinations of traits are what allowed this group of birds to colonize and diversify across the world," said a  postdoctoral research associate at Washington University in St. Louis, and is now a geneticist at the University of Barcelona. Crows and ravens (household names that encompass several species of birds in the genus Corvus) have proven their smarts time and again. Crows understand the concept of zero and can use multi-step planning and tools to access tasty treats. Ravens, meanwhile, have been shown to rival great apes in their intelligence, according to a 2020 study in the journal Scientific Reports.

 

Interesting !

 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

30.4.2022.