song
dr. dolittle | October 23, 2017The #3 post so far this year explored how zebra finches reward themselves for singing well:
Dopamine is an important hormone released from neurons involved in reward pathways. Researchers at Cornell University wanted to know if dopamine signaling was involved in how birds learn songs. Their findings, recently published in Science, present evidence that neurons in the brain of zebra finches do in fact decrease dopamine signals when the birds hear an error in their song in comparison to when they sing 'correctly'. The researchers also found that dopamine signaling was enhanced when the birds…
dr. dolittle | March 29, 2017
Dopamine is an important hormone released from neurons involved in reward pathways. Researchers at Cornell University wanted to know if dopamine signaling was involved in how birds learn songs. Their findings, recently published in Science, present evidence that neurons in the brain of zebra finches do in fact decrease dopamine signals when the birds hear an error in their song in comparison to when they sing 'correctly'. The researchers also found that dopamine signaling was enhanced when the birds corrected a mistake made during a prior attempt.
Sources:
V. Gadagkar, P.A. Puzerey, R.…
dr. dolittle | January 19, 2016New research shows that premotor neurons are activated in the brains of adolescent male zebra finches whenever a young bird hears their father (a tutor) sing. These are the same neurons that are usually activated in anticipation of movement. What is special about this, is that as the birds learned new songs or pieces of new songs, activation of these neurons declined. This effect was due to inhibitory interneurons whose firing frequency increased as the birds practiced and improved their accuracy. Activation of these inhibitory interneurons prevented any further changes to the circuitry once…
dr. dolittle | September 17, 2015A female mouse that is. You may recall a post from several years ago when we talked about how rats seem to "laugh" when tickled. Back in April 2015 researchers at Duke University presented a video that showed male mice "singing" a tune after either smelling the urine of a female mouse or being in her presence. The sounds were recorded using a microphone designed to capture 35 to 125 kilohertz (kz), which is a much higher frequency than we can hear:
Recent research published in eLife shows that female mice will sing back if interested in the male pursuing her. You can listen to a clip of a…
drorzel | October 11, 2010SteelyKid, like most toddlers, knows a few songs, and likes to sing them over and over. Her repertoire is limited to "ABCDEFG" (the alphabet song, but that's how she requests it), "Twinkle, Twinkle," "Some man" ("This Old Man," which I only figured out this weekend), and "Round and Round" ("The Wheels on the Bus"). I get a little bored with the repetition, and so tend to make up my own verses, which get sideways looks from her, followed by telling Kate "Daddy's silly!"
I've been posting a lot of these on Twitter over the past several days (@orzelc), but for posterity, a few physics-related…
drorzel | September 1, 2010Rubber dino, you're the one,
You make bathtime lots of fun
Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of you
Doo-doo doo-de-doo
Rubber dino, fearsome roar,
Good thing you're a herbivore
Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of you
doo-doo doo-de-doo
Every day when I,
get undressed next to the sink,
I find a
Little fella who's,
cute and yellow and extinct
When I squeeze you, water squirts,
Then I giggle, 'til it hurts
Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of you
Doo-doo doo-de-doo
You're my favorite bathtime toy,
Watch out for that asteroid!
Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of
Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of,
Rubber dino…
grrlscientist | September 21, 2009tags: nature, mammals, Antarctica, blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus, National Geographic, streaming video
Blue whales, Balaenoptera musculus, have complex calls that can be heard for miles. In this National Geographic video, we meet one scientist is on a mission to uncover the meaning of their songs.
grrlscientist | July 7, 2009tags: Africa, Toto, Perpetuum Jazzile, music, streaming video
This video is a live recording of Toto's "Africa" (I love that song!) performed by Perpetuum Jazzile at Vokal Xtravaganzza 2008 (October 2008). This vocal group uses only their bodies to create these remarkable sounds, ranging from rain to thunder [6:17]
edyong | March 13, 2009The songs of birds certainly sound beautiful to our ears but listen closely and you'll hear a world of conflict and subterfuge. Take the Preuvian warbling antbird (Hypocnemis peruviana). Males and females live in pairs and they will defend their territories from other duos by singing beautifully coordinated duets.
Theirs is a most melodious partnership but throw another female into the mix and the harmony breaks down. The duet turns into an acoustic battle - the female tries to jam the song of her partner with her own, so that the notes of his amorous solo fail to reach the ears of the…
grrlscientist | September 12, 2008tags: Mackenna's Gold, Jose Feliciano, music, film, movies, streaming video
Really amazing footage and wonderful music by José Feliciano about turkey vultures, from the movie, Mackenna's Gold -- is this a film I must see? You tell me! [5:24]
"There's an old story.
The way the Apaches tell it...
...a man was riding in the desert
and came across a vulture...
...the kind they call turkey buzzards
in Arizona, sittin' on a rock.
"Hey", the man says, "how come you
old turkey buzzard's sittin' here?
"I saw you flying over Hadleyberg,
and I didn't want to meet up with you...
"...so I turned around…
esiegel | May 10, 2008I'm not someone who gets as excited about science-fiction space shows as many other science bloggers, but I am a fan of the current Battlestar Galactica and, especially, of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But there's one man who stands out as the hero of Star Trek: TNG, and it's the seasoned, savvy, courageous and confident Captain Picard:
Now Patrick Stewart is one cool guy, but he's nothing compared to the starship captain he played. Back in 2001, a band named Dark Materia made a techno song about Captain Picard called The Picard Song, and for me, the combination of bad techno, sound bites…
zooillogix | June 21, 2007Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Barbara-Anne......
According to a new study from Cornell University, African electric fish engage in a dueling performance of electric pulses when in courtship. Scientists had known that the fish emitted electric signals to explore their surroundings and communicate sex and social standing. This, however, was the first research comparing the electric emissions of breeding and non-breeding fish and sorting the fish's emissions based on their sex.
The fish use a battery-like organ in their tails to generate the weak charge. The researchers used custom software to separate and…