Huh.Thanks to global warming, and the resultant increase in oceanic wind speeds, seabirds are flying faster than they've ever flown before. They're healthier—gaining weight and wingspan and everything—because of it. Man, if this had happened 40 years ago, Jonathan Livingston Seagull would never even have had to be written! But it was. And they made a movie, and Neil Diamond made the soundtrack. Lots of other songs have been written about seabirds, though. There's something about them that makes us feel lonely and wistful, I think, the way they soar for so long on the wind over the empty expanse of the sea. So out of reach. Oh, [...]

Good news and bad news in the world of seabirds. Let's start with the bad: the Texas-sized patch of garbage in the Pacific Ocean that's been in the news lately is killing the majestic and poetically important, but also terribly endangered, albatross. A depressing video art piece at Scientific American shows the rotting carcasses of albatross chick after albatross chick who have died with bellies full of colorful plastic that their parents collected and fed them, thinking it was food. The wandering albatross' wingspan of 11 feet is the largest of any bird: The things can soar for thousand of miles without touching down. But apparently [...]