Physicist Deploys Robotic Tutors to Teach Young Birds the Forgotten Songs of Their Forebears

Argentine physicist Gabriel Mindlin at the University of Buenos Aires searched handwritten field notes from the 1960s for bird melodies that appear to have audibly vanished from a Buenos Aires park. Concerned that these songs were dying out for good, Mindlin and his team deployed robots to teach young birds their forebears' forgotten songs in the wild.

His efforts are featured in the Guardian documentary Dream of Birds.

Following clues hidden in the sounds birds make while asleep, Argentinian physicist Gabriel Mindlin uncovers a hidden extinction - not of species, but of memory - and sets out to revive vanished melodies before they disappear forever.

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