BIRDS OF A FEATHER

THE amazing things birds could teach us about human health. This week: Why we yawn … YAWNING has puzzled scientists for centuries. Theories have ranged from it being a display of dominance, to a way of getting rid of excess carbon dioxide, and a means of balancing ear pressure.

Now, scientists in the U.S. say that budgies may hold some of the clues.

Research at the State University of New York published two years ago revealed that budgies engage in contagious yawning, like dogs and humans, which makes them useful for research. The researchers believe the function of yawning may be to cool the brain after finding that every time budgies yawned, the temperature of their faces — a marker of brain temperature — dropped by one-third of a degree. ‘These results provide evidence of a brain cooling function to yawning,’ the scientists wrote in the journal Temperature.