birdsoup

The following is ripped directly from the pages of The New York Times Sunday Magazine:

Scientists at the University of Mexico noticed that city birds were picking up cigarette butts and bringing them back to their nests. Like good scientists they wondered why. So they studied dozens of finch and sparrow nests. Some contained fibers from the cigarette butts, some didn’t.

It turns out that the nests with cigarette fibers had fewer parasites than those without fibers. Nicotine, it seems, wards off parasites. The birds were smart enough to know this.

However, the scientists were careful to point out that they do not recommend smoking just to help the birds.