Birds create songs by moving muscles in their vocal organs to vibrate air passing through their tissues. While previous research reported that each of the different muscles controls one acoustic feature, new research shows ...
General Physics
Jul 31, 2018
0
73
What makes human cultural traditions unique? One common answer is that we are better copycats than other species, which allows us to pass our habits and ways of life down through the generations without losing or forgetting ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 20, 2018
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165
Insights into how songbirds learn to sing provide promising clues about human speech disorders and may lead to new ways of treating them, according to new research published in the journal eLife.
Biotechnology
Mar 28, 2018
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140
Understanding the factors that affect a bird species' nesting success can be crucial for planning effective conservation efforts. However, many studies of nesting birds last only a few years—and that means they can miss ...
Ecology
Mar 21, 2018
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4
When North American ornithologists hear a bird singing, they're likely to assume it's a male. But in many species, the females sing too—and a new commentary in The Auk: Ornithological Advances argues that a better understanding ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 14, 2018
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40
Some good news: songbirds living near oil and gas fields in Canada's prairies are indeed able to understand each other over the clamour of machines, an international research team reports.
Plants & Animals
Mar 5, 2018
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250
Some Canadian songbirds have to change their tunes because noise pollution from things like oil and gas drilling equipment otherwise drowns out important parts of their songs, University of Manitoba researchers have found.
Plants & Animals
Jan 24, 2018
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71
Birds play an important role in a wide variety of ecosystems as both predator and prey, in controlling insect populations, pollinating and seed dispersal for many plants, and in releasing nutrients on to land and sea in the ...
Ecology
Jan 3, 2018
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9
Researchers at UC San Francisco have shown how the Bengalese finch, a domesticated songbird, can learn to tweak its song in specific ways depending on context, which could shed light on how the human brain learns to apply ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 16, 2017
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44
For a songbird, learning a new song is akin to a child learning a new language. Zebra finches approach this challenge step by step, and even make a detour in the process - by taking song syllables that they already know and ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 1, 2017
0
28
