Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2014 October 3

= October 3 =

Parabolic Bird Dives
My father got my mother a very expensive bird feeder for Christmas that has been so successful it attracts at least 20 birds of at least six species on a normal day (probably more than 20). The action is so frantic my dad called it Bird War Three. Some of the birds (I believe nuthatches and other species) dive-bomb the limited seating to get access. This is in a rather tightly wooded area, and I believe I have seen the birds do actual parabolic dives. Is this documented among songbirds? Google is unhelpful and we seem to have an article about a New Zealand Pigeon doing parabolic dives but it's CN-ed. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 03:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Projectile motion generally always follows the path of a conic section. For any object that returns to earth, that's going to be best modeled as a parabola.  -- Jayron  32  04:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I mentioned dive bombing because these birds are not returning to the ground they are swooping down, perhaps 6-12 feet from a perch in a tree on one side of the feeder, buzzing the landing platform, and returning in a vaguely u-shaped pattern to another perch in another tree again, maybe 6-12 feet from the feeder. The flight is controlled, even if only by adjustment of the wing angle.  Think of a "hanging" curve, not a standing arch. μηδείς (talk) 04:17, 3 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Parts_of_Parabola.svg do mean "descending rapidly towards another bird, then pulling up again, resulting in a a flight path approximated by convex parabola", right? This seems unsurprising to me. There is plenty of literature that mentions this type of flight, but it's a matter of how specific you want to get. Songbird in the modern, narrow sense means the Passeri, so I just searched /swoop passeri/ on google scholar. There are tons of relevant hits, but many/most are pay-walled. This (freely accessible) thesis on nest defense in a songbird species discusses how they swoop at other birds that attack the nest . Alternately, the Passeri clade is rather new, and so you'll get a lot more hits with "passerine" or even "songbird." Adding 'defense', 'territorial' or 'foraging' might lead to more specific studies. Additional hints for searching: exclude 'stooping' and perhaps 'kite' and other terms that are used for raptors, as many of the hits I got were about hawks using a stooping strike to catch passerines, not about passerines swooping at other birds.
 * Granted, "swoop" isn't technically synonymous with "parabolic trajectory", but it's the word that the ornithologists I know use to talk about this kind of flight. I doubt you'll find specific studies that quantify the flight path and fit parabolas, but maybe you can turn one up with enough searching. From my perspective, this general type of flight behavior is mentioned in probably hundreds of research papers. Anyway, sounds like a fun feeder, enjoy. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Since what I was looking for was a confirmation this does happen, not an explanation (I understand conic sections and the forces involved, etc.) I will take your word for it. This is the first time I've seen such behavior in songbirds, and it is incessant. I knew this was exhibited in birds of prey, but this really looks like something out of Hitchcock--I'll bet if they had a garden gnome properly placed they could get a million hits over night. μηδείς (talk) 17:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Fear of cotton balls
Hello. A friend of mine recently told me that she has a fear of cotton balls. I decided to do some searches to see what medical information there is on this phobia. It appears several amateur sites have termed this bambakophobia or sidonglobophobia. However, there aren't any hits for these terms under Google Scholar, Wikipedia, dictionaries (excluding Wiktionary), etc.

Is there anyone with access to academic journals / research databases who can do some skimming for me to see if this fear is researched? Thanks in advance. Killiondude (talk) 05:57, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * All of the various X-phobias are basically folk psychology and the real world of psychiatry and psychology that deals with anxiety, fear, and phobias are not dealt with by first classifying different phobias solely on the specific target of the irrational fear. Treatment of such highly-specific aversions does not hinge on naming it or classifying it or giving it a faux-latinate name.  The type of phobia you describe fits under the classification of Specific phobia.  That Wikipedia article discusses treatment.  If you search for "treatment of specific phobia" you'll get lots of hits on research and reliable sources, e.g. this one from the University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychiatry.  -- Jayron  32  06:11, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * In that case, it could be fair to say that the psychotherapy conducted by Lucy van Pelt, who likes to assign names to phobias, is worth about the price she charges. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:22, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Basically yes. Phobias, aversions, and anxiety disorders are categorized into broad groups that aids in their treatment, after all knowing that someone has an aversion to touching an object may require a different treatment than knowing that someone has an aversion to speaking in public, or shaking hands, or something like that.  That's why specific phobias are classified differently than social phobia.  But they all fit under the umbrella of anxiety disorders.  To take the specific example of the fear of cotton balls from the OP.  That someone has a fear of cotton balls may lead a medical professional to proscribe a certain treatment regimen, but they would proscribe the same treatment regimen for someone who had a fear of any other random object.  The locus of the specific phobia is largely irrelevant to the diagnosis or treatment of it.  So the faux-latin word for whatever the "fear of cotton balls" is wouldn't be a medical term, no one deals with it as its own disorder.  Specific phobia is as close as you'll get.  -- Jayron  32  12:51, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * A friend of mine in college had a boyfriend with cotton balls. He had to use a special shampoo for a month.  She was more horrified than frightened, however. μηδείς (talk) 17:31, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Jayron. That helped satisfy some curiosity. Killiondude (talk) 20:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC)