DON'T TAKE THIS TOO SERIOUSLY - BADSCI HYPE

   "Pigeons sniff the wind to find home" 

   The mystery of how a homing pigeon is able to fly
   hundreds of miles to its loft has been explained by
   scientists who have shown that the instinct relies on an
   acute sense of smell. 

   A team of biologists found that young pigeons deprived
   of the chance of smelling the winds around their loft
   were never subsequently able to learn how to fly home. 

   A study published today in the Proceedings of the Royal
   Society of London reveals that an early ability to
   recognise the smells of local winds is crucial if a pigeon
   is ever to acquire its homing instincts. 

   Anna Gagliardo, the lead author of a team from the
   University of Pisa, said that learning to smell the wind
   allowed pigeons to associate odours with certain wind
   directions. "The outcome of this learning process is a
   map-like representation of the distribution of salient
   atmospheric odours in the region around the loft," Dr
   Gagliardo said. 

   The first three months of a pigeon's life is crucial. The
   researchers found that after three months of being kept
   in a screened aviary, deprived of wind, the pigeons
   never regained the homing instinct. 

   Yet older birds who had not been subjected to that sort
   of sensory deprivation could relearn the homing instinct
   if they were moved to a new loft. 

   By Steve Connor, Science Editor 
   16 January 2001
   Extract from "The Independent" - English broadsheet

   -------------------------------------------------  

    "Perceptions" note:

    A classic case of false trails in science.

    What the researchers actually proved was if a pigeon spends
    its first three months in a "screened aviary" ...

    [... during that period when the brain is forming connections
    to enable _all_ future recognition of sensations and stimuli ...

    will later not be able to recognise (or orient) on the
    stimulus that normally allows pigeons to find their way home.  

    From that the researchers - acting in mainstream science
    ignorance of UEF Theory - isolated the "only known" stimulus
    they thought the pigeon had been deprived of - Smell!

    The researchers were at a severe disadvantage - they were
    unaware of the existence of the stimulus that really allows
    the pigeon to 'home'.
    
    try
    http://www.perceptions.couk.com/blinded.html 

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              FURTHER REFERENCES

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file-ID www.perceptions.couk.com/homing.txt