Smashing Skulls: Woodpeckers Secret Power is Revealed

So, some scientists with lots of time and money to spend, discovered that Woodpeckers little skulls are not shock absorbers.

This is supposed to be a big deal. 

If you ever wondered how their tiny brains stay intact as they smash their faces into a tree, Sam Van Wassenbergh a biologist at the University of Antwerp has the answer. He discovered that woodpeckers are not absorbing shocks in the skull during pecking, and they likely aren't being concussed by using their heads like hammers.

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Here's the report published in Current Biology

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Say what?

Apparently when a woodpecker's beak makes contact with a tree it generates a shock. The researchers say that the shock is basically absorbed by the bird's whole body in layman's terms.

The researchers came up with a computational model based upon the pecking movement and skull shape and size to prove their theory. 

But there's still questions about woodpeckers that scientists want to know about like how it maintains stiffness between its skull and its beak during pecking and what other factors may be involved that could mitigate possible damage to the brain.

All of this is fascinating... I suppose.

I certainly don't see this knowledge of why woodpeckers don't get hurt when they smash their beaks into wood saving mankind.

I hate being a party-pecker pooper, but there's way too many studies on dumb shit like this and not enough on global warming or curing cancer, two of the biggest threats to mankind.