The article "Pudgy Birds May Migrate Faster" was posted on the LiveScience site on February 17, and it's been picked up by a few online papers since then. There didn't seem to be too many birds involved in the study to me (only 20), but I'm sure standards for migratory research don't need to be nearly as stringent as they do for human drug testing. For instance.

The research suggests that chubby migratory birds can reach their breeding grounds faster by taking shorter breaks — since they have bigger fat reserves, and don't have to stop as long for food. The researchers found that fat birds usually move on the night of their arrival at a stopping point, while thin birds remain at the stopping point for an average of almost two days.

That's pretty interesting, in and of itself. But what's really fascinating is how the British paper The Register spun the story. Their article was titled "Fat birds get laid sooner, have more one-night stands." And the article was filled with vocabulary like "chubbies" and "wobblebottomed." Which makes me think I ought to be reading The Register more often. My kind of spin.