Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, I'm Lauren vogel Bomb In. Today's episode is a classic from our archives. This one involves an interesting bit of research concerning birds and cigarette butts. It turns out this litter can actually help city birds stay healthier in some ways. Anyway, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogel Bomb. Here the house sparrows and finches of Mexico City may be proud to be called bird brains. And why not.
They figured out how to use one of the grossest things on Earth, cigarette butts, to repel two of the other grossest things on Earth, ticks and mites. MoMA birds find their nests under constant and pervasive threat from these blood sucking, feather feasting ectoparasites. Country birds have easy access to nature's bountiful nest making materials, including certain insect repelling
herbs and plants. City dwelling birds, on the other hand, face a concrete and steel urban landscape and curate their nests from a more anthropogenic or man made palette enter cigarette butts. A study published in twelve in the journal Biology Letters details the ongoing investigation of an urban population of breeding housefinches and house sparrows at the National University of Mexico in Mexico City. The authors found that both species interweaved anywhere from a few to a few dozen
smoked cigarette butts into their twiggy eclectic domiciles. In fact, the study concluded the more butts, the healthier the nest. Nicotine is an insecticide generated by the tobacco plant to ward off invasive leaf eating arthropods like beetles. Some residual nicotine remains in the fibers of cigarette butts that motherbirds
used to line and insulate their nests. It turns out that this nicotine tinged filter fluff has medicinal and pesticidal properties that repel tics, in particular protecting MoMA's chicks from a potentially lethal fate. Overall, the study concludes that the more cigarette filter fiber there is in the nest, the fewer ticks and mites, revealing per sway of evidence that parasites don't like cigarette butts and that nests built with
these butts attract fewer parasites. But there's no Avian surgeon general, so who decides whether this seemingly beneficial cigarette habit harms the birds or is a savvy and resourceful example of urban wildlife adaptation. Researchers confirm that there is some genetic damage linked to the activity, but they believe that the positive life saving anti parasitic effects far outwagh any long term negative consequences. So you've come a long way, Bertie's,
and you're helping clean up our cities while you're at it. Interestingly, there's another way that birds may help combat cigarette butt litter. A Dutch startup Crowded Cities is developing the Crowbar and Autonomous training device to teach crows, some of the most competent scavengers in the world, to deliver found cigarette butts
to a trash receptacle in exchange for food reward. Today's episode is based on the article urban birds ousd Bugs with Butts on houstu works dot com, written by Carrie Tatrow. Green Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Before more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.