It is not only the scientific literature that documents the unexpected “doughnut” pattern in swarms (“The Mind of the Swarm,” SN: 11/25/06, p. 347). Italo Calvino’s fictional Mr. Palomar observed (rather more lyrically) about the flocking of Roman starlings, “Finally a form emerges from the confused flutter of wings, advances, condenses: it is a circular shape, like a sphere, a bubble, the balloon-speech of someone who is thinking of a sky full of birds … ” (Mr.
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