Nova Ornus Hestii is a little bird that's about 80 million years old, and it's helping scientists

piece together how bird brains evolved. They look very, very much like that of a modern bird.

And yet, the bones that made up this skull are primitive.

So in a sense, it's like if you were to be building the Empire State building with Adobe bricks.

It's Tuesday, November 19th, and you're listening to Science Friday.

I'm SciFRI producer Rasha Iridi.

A little bit later, we're going to get into why we know so little about what happened to birds' brains between archaeopteryx, which was the earliest bird-like dinosaur, to the birds we know now.

But before we get to bird brains, we'll learn how black-legged ticks, also called deer ticks, might be hanging out

with invasive plant species. Here's Cy-Frize Kathleen Davis. Black-legged ticks, also known as deer

ticks, are a big problem for both people and wildlife in the eastern United States. Their bites

can spread bacterial infections like Lyme disease, and their populations

have spread over the past few decades. Researchers in Vermont and Maine have noticed an interesting

correlation between ticks and invasive plant species. A better understanding of this could have

an impact on how we manage both. Here to talk about

this project is my guest, Lexi Krupp, Science and Health Reporter for Vermont public based in

Burlington, Vermont. Lexi, welcome to Science Friday. Thanks for having me. So tell us about this

project that you reported on. What exactly are these researchers in Vermont and Maine trying to figure out?

Just backing up for a minute, there have been a couple studies showing this link between an invasive shrub, Japanese Barbary, and black-legged ticks.

And if you haven't seen Barbary, it's this bush that can grow over your head. It has small leaves that turn red in the fall and bright red berries. It's pretty. A lot of people will plant it in their yards, but in the forest, it can really take over the understory. A while back, researchers in Maine noticed that there were way more

black-legged ticks on these plants, twice as many ticks in forests with Japanese Barbary

compared to nearby forests with native shrubs. Then a few years ago in Connecticut,

other researchers found if you cut down Barbary, there's fewer ticks.

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