Researchers at Duke University found that a male bird's singing may show his strengths and weaknesses to potential mates. For a long time it was believed that the more songs a bird knew, the smarter it was. This experiment found that while birds with large singing repertoires excel in some areas of cognitive function, their singing ability also leaves them with deficiency in other areas. This is because while the bird is developing resources may either mostly go to the HVC, the song controlling area of the bird's brain, or the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls spatial learning. This is important because birdsong is a good way of studying speech development.
NOS Themes:
- Science is collaborative
- Science is based on evidence
- Role of chance
Another possible NOS could be the role of motivation and curiosity the scientists had in this respective field of biology.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty interesting how birds can communicate something like that. I wonder if they know that they're giving away a weakness or if it's just innate? I found this site that has like everything you could think of, you should check it out! http://songbirdscience.com/
ReplyDeleteThat's really interesting, I wonder what role broadcasting your weaknesses could play in sexual selection, though?
ReplyDeleteHere's another article I found:http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-development-of-birdsong-16133266
People like hearing birds that sound the most like a human voice. Birds actually don't sing in the organized patterns and rules that make up most music.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/08/birdsong-not-music-after-all.html