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October 3, 2014

Strange But True!

Q. How is it that a bird can rest safely on a 500,000-volt power line?

A. The usual answer is that the bird's body does not “complete” an electrical circuit between two different voltages (two different power lines, or a power line and the ground), so no current flows through it. But after taking a nuanced look at the electrocution-avoidance exploits of birds, physicist Jose Redinz, writing in the American Journal of Physics, concluded that they actually do experience electrical current flows.


 
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