This is a very beautiful video of a large “murmuration” (collective noun) of starlings flocking and swirling in amazing patterns.
This article, “A Murmuration of Starlings,” on the Atlantic Monthly’s website, explains that there is some very complex mathematics behind this stunning phenomenon of nature.
There is also an article from WIRED Science on it: “Amazing Starling Flocks Are Flying Avalanches.”
The Atlantic writer postulates that gaining a better understanding of this would be a good problem on which computer science might be able to shed some light.
Extra credit, anyone?
RooseveltCS.org 