Cowbirds' winning songs reflect brainpower
...iscuous, male shiny cowbirds have large brains and sing forcefully, while the females, whose brains are sm...le the screaming and bay-winged male cowbirds also sing for sex, these birds are monogamous. Interestingly, both male and female bay-winged cowbirds have a...Brain neurochemicals, not gender, tell a female to act like a female
... distinguished by three things: Their inability to sing like a type I male (although type II males can grunt, as can females, which is explained in the attached fact sheet); their smaller body size but enlarged reproductive organs; and the type II males' habit of sneakily fertilizing eggs left for the typ...Melatonin Shapes Brain Structure In Songbirds
... higher level of testosterone and prompts males to sing more toattract mates and to defend against competitors. The longer daylight hours ofspringtime, they found, causes songbirds' gonads to grow from the size of pepperflakes to marbles. It was almost as if birds entered puberty every spring, andthen the...Largest Acoustics Meeting In History Expected
...scribe why classical vocalists, who are trained to sing without electric amplification, often do not use their full vocal abilities. For example, they use falsetto voice sparingly because it does not balance with the chest voice in terms of loudness. For better or worse, electrical amplification removes...At Night, Birds May Review The Songs They Learn During The Day
...ng sleep," says Margoliash,because the birds don't sing in their sleep. But even when the birds wereasleep, Margoliash and his students recorded strong, erratic RA activity. RAneurons in wakeful birds exhibit fast, regularly oscillating patterns. Margoliash and his colleagues recorded electrical impulse...Cardinals Can Recognize Gender By Song, Columbia University Biologist Finds
...s, like the females of mostsongbird species, don't sing at all. Dr. Yamaguchi was intrigued that cardinalssing only during breeding season from early spring to midsummer, and reasonedthat, since the birds normally inhabit dense underbrush that hides them fromview, their songs might provide the cue that a...Williams Syndrome: New UD Study May Shed Light On Rare Genetic Disorder-And Normal Development
... "60 Minutes" described a similar grown-up who can sing nearly2,000 songs memorized in more than 20 foreign languages, yet is unable to solvesimple mathematical problems. Such are the mystifying intellectual discrepancies of those diagnosed withWilliams Syndrome. First recognized as a separate syndrome in...Birds Sing The 'Story Of Their Lives,' Theorize Duke Biologists
...e.edu DURHAM, N.C. -- When male songbirds sing to attract mates, the qualityof their song might directly portray their fitness, say Duke Universitybiologists in advancing a new theory of how birdsong serves as a mating signal.Their theory holds that female birds carefully analyze a male's song qu...High Testosterone Level May Lead Male Junco To Stray From Mate
...ing this spike in testosterone, are more likely to sing vigorouslyand adopt other behaviors that help them find and attract a mate. However, after finding a mate, normal males will show a dip in testosterone.They then show less interest in other females, and an earlier study in thisproject demonstrated t...Christmas Bird Count: Another Holiday Tradition
...tuck with a mere partridge in a pear tree, you can sing about significant increases among eastern bluebirds, American crows, and American goldfinches and declines of bobwhites, loggerhead shrikes, field sparrows, and mockingbirds. Come Christmas morning, when you have finished setting up that new......eir songs. With severe mutations, the flies do not sing a note, thoughthey can flick their wings and can use them to fly. (courtesy: JeffreyHall, Brandeis University) Geneticists have known for years that the gene, called fruitless and nicknamed fru , influences sexual orientation in the fly Drosophila ...