🔬 Science 1d ago · Brendan Brown

Scientists have reconstructed the dodo’s brain from CT scans of its skull and found an oversized smell centre and forward-facing, owl-like eyes — the bird that became shorthand for stupidity appears to have been navigating Mauritius by nose, and in the dark

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For four centuries, the dodo has served as the specific animal humans reach for when we want to describe stupidity.



Its name has entered multiple languages as an insult. Political cartoons draw dodos when they want to picture someone incapable of adapting to their circumstances. Dictionary definitions of the word “dodo” list “a stupid person” as a secondary meaning. Nobody has actually known whether the reputation was deserved — the last living dodo died sometime in th

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