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Starlings and Social Networks

4 Extra Debut. Becky Ripley and Emily Knight explore what starling murmuration patterns can tell us about our own social networks. From 2019.

Starling murmurations, those swirling, shifting sky-patterns made by hundreds of birds moving in synchrony, are one of nature’s greatest spectacles.

How do they avoid crashing into each other?

Becky Ripley and Emily Knight delve into the maths behind the movement with some computer modelling to help them chart the flight patterns, and discover the secret.

As for us humans, sadly we don’t fly together through the sky in swirling clouds. But there ARE patterns to how we interact with one another.

Like a ripple of movement, travelling through a cloud of starlings, ideas can spread through social media with blistering speed. Here too, computer modelling can help us chart how opinions morph as we react to those around us.

Do we have more in common with the birds than we think?

Featuring:

* Jamie Wood from the University of York
* Dr Jennifer Golbeck from the University of Maryland.

Produced and presented by Becky Ripley and Emily Knight.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2019.

Available now

15 minutes

Last on

Last Monday09:30
BBC Radio 4 Extra

More episodes

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Sea-Sponges and the Illusion of Self

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Broadcasts

  • Mon 17 Jun 201913:45
    BBC Radio 4
  • Tue 19 Nov 201909:30
    BBC Radio 4
  • Mon 20 Sep 202119:45
    BBC Radio 4
  • Last Monday09:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra

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    Making sense of what it means to be human by looking to the natural world.