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Hundreds of dead starlings dropped from the sky in Laurel, Maryland recently. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. This time, the mass deaths are being blamed on everything from fireworks to bad weather.

The birds fell out of the sky onto a highway, during a weekday commute. On the local ABC News affiliate website, Brad Bell, Jason Cherkis and Stephen Teschider quote Laurel resident Ray Wheltle as saying, "I travel this all the time and have never seen anything like that before."
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Police have discovered a way to cut crime: Play bird songs.

Crime has gone down in Lancaster, California ever since the mayor started playing nature sounds–bird chirps, the sound of running water–in the streets. Mayor R. Rex Parris discovered this in the UK, and brought the idea home and he has been playing the sounds during the past 10 months for 5 hours a day, over 70 speakers set up along the main street.

In the Wall Street Journal, John Letzing quotes Parris as saying, "Everybody is now in a better mood, a better place."
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We know that the ancestors of birds were dinosaurs, so did these ancient giant creatures walk around counting the leaves on the trees? Because it turns out that some birds–pigeons, to be precise–are excellent at math. When it comes to counting, they match the ability of chimps.
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