The Birds in the news

You might have known that The Birds is based in part on a real incident in 1961 when a bunch of seagulls committed suicide off the coast of the Central California coast. What I didn't realize is that scientists have apparently been debating for the past 50 years what led to the birds' strange behavior.

A new study claims to answer that question. Apparently the birds' food supply had become contaminated, such that the birds were getting subjected to a high concentration of a neurotoxin. I don't know enough about neurochemistry to know how accurate any of this is, but it at least makes for interesting reading.

That having been said, none of this has anything to do with whether the movie itself is enjoyable, which it certainly is.