I’ve been loving BURIAL’s brand new track “Forgive” not only for the beauty of the song itself, but also for the accompanying video which stars the mesmerizing murmuration flight patterns of a flock of starlings. How in the world are these winged creatures able to pull off such a remarkable feat as this, you might ask? I did some digging and came upon this great explanation written last year by Brandon Keim of WIRED: “Scientists had to wait for the tools of high-powered video analysis and computational modeling. And when these were finally applied to starlings, they revealed patterns known less from biology than cutting-edge physics. Starling flocks, it turns out, are best described with equations of “critical transitions” — systems that are poised to tip, to be almost instantly and completely transformed, like metals becoming magnetized or liquid turning to gas. Each starling in a flock is connected to every other. When a flock turns in unison, it’s a phase transition … Starlings may simply be the most visible and beautiful example of a biological criticality that also seems to operate in proteins and neurons, hinting at universal principles yet to be understood.” You can read the entire explanation by visiting WIRED.com. I’m not sure which universal principles govern the phenomenon of forgiveness, but for more amazingness from BURIAL be sure to follow him on Facebook. And no post on murmuration would be complete without watching the trailer for Take Shelter — a movie so brilliant I won’t “Forgive” you until you see it.
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