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Singing Mice and Brain Chemistry
Shirlockc writes "The Public Library of Science has a research article on how male mice actually sing in the presence of females. They actually posted some of the audios adjusted for human ears as these songs are ultrasonic. The authors are comparing these warbles to bird songs. The songs are quite complex so do the mice learn them and/or improve on them? This can be a potential model for investigating how brain chemistry works during learning."
This should not be a surprise. Mice are truly the smartest most intelligent species to inhabit the Earth, followed by dolphins, then humans.
My singing attracted the ladies.. :-(
- Aetheral Research -
DJ Rat is recording his new mixed tape, which should be released early next Spring. The FCC; however, is not so thrilled, because the mixed tape "is one of the dirtiest fowlest things I have ever heard" said an FCC spokesman. "But it wasn't a suprise I guess, you know- he is a rat after all".
public class null extends java applet { System.out.print ("Tabula Rasa"); }
That's copyright infringemnt! Those mice songs are rip off from our records! ;P
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
Are they sure it wasn't the mouse equivalent of "Hey baby, are you a parking ticket? Cause you have 'fine' written all over you!"
CHEEEEEESE-ings, nothing more than cheeeeese-ings
Trying to forget my CHEEEESE-ings for you
CHEEEEEEESE-ings,
Woah woah woah CHEEEEEESE-ings,
Woah woah woah CHEEEEEESE-ings,
OK, that's enough, I'm now annoying even myself.
M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E!
Hey there, hi there, ho there, you're as welcome as can be.
M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E!
Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!) Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)
Forever let us hold his banner high, high, HIGH, HIGH!!
Come along and sing the song and join the jamboree.
M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E!
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I've been emitting high-pitched squeals whenever attractive women come near me for years. Why does nobody call it a "song" then? ;(
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and already has recording mice patented and copyrighted. They are seeking to pass legislation through congress that will allow them to plug all of the analog holes these mice may have, unless the mice are genetically altered and the alteration is not open source.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Now we just need to work on reverse-engineering their secret ultrasonic communications so that we can find out what they plan to do with us.
11*43+456^2
Though the article makes a brief reference to insects' mating vocalizations, it really doesn't capture the image of a male fruit fly running after a female with his wings out as he frantically "sings" to her. In doing a quick search for the genes responsible for producing the correct song in D. melanogaster I stumbled across this appropriately named gene.
"It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss
With all these marbles in my mouth"
I always wondered why there were so many female mice following Mariah Carey around. Those ain't vocal harmonics she's ripping, rather she's singing mouse love songs!
What are we going to do tonight pinky?
We're going to do what we do every night...
1..2..1..2..3..4...
"New York, New York...."
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
Scientists around the world are baffled at the conclusion of this experiment. Unable to reproduce many of the results that the pair of scientists claimed to have achieved in their own laboratory mice, a panel of prominent behavioral research scientists has been assembled to test the verity of these peculiar findings. In the transcript of the trial, the originators of this experiment claim their mouse's song went something like this:
Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal,
Send me a kiss by wire, baby my heart's on fire!
If you refuse me, honey you'll lose me, then you'll be alone,
Oh baby, telephone, and tell me I'm your own!
1. Fund some obscure research department
2. Have them teach mice to sing.
3. Publish results to world, touting the musical abilities of mice.
4. Make micro-nano iPods to affix to the mice.
5. PROFIT!!!
1. Whistle 2. ? 3. Cheese 4. Sex!
Smile.
do whatever your hormones tell you to do.
As in, try to get "a piece of the action"? If you havent forgotten, we're on slashdot.
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So why do the male mice sing to the females, eh? I mean, it's not like they need sound to find each other or tell the pitchers from the catchers -- they can sniff each other out in the total dark, et cetera.
/. and hoping horny girls mod you +5, Insightful Interesting Funny Yes Yes Oh Yes Take Me Now You Utter Stud.
Why would natural selection push male mice to develop this talent?
I sure don't know, but just for amusement I'll propose something along the lines of the OP's comment: suppose we argue an important characteristic of mice is that they are damn clever for their size. Seems likely they're a lot smarter, for example, than snakes or lizards or even birds of equivalent mass. Maybe they need smarts to succeed at a lifetime of scampering and hiding and thieving bits of food from larger predators.
If this is so, maybe it makes sense that the smartest males want to advertise their intelligence, and females are interested in listening to those ads, so that they can pick out good genes for the pups.
Now, clearly it takes brains to learn a complex song, spice it up with a couple of individual flourishes, and memorize it. So maybe what these mice fellas are doing by singing is advertising how smart they are. And maybe the girl mice by listening in are evaluating the sexy braininess of boy mice as it's expressed in their composition.
It would be, in essence, the auditory equivalent of posting clever comments on
All I could think of when i read this was R. Kelly.
"I want to piss on you.. I really do..."
Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
You know, the humor in books is generally hard to understand as there's no laughtrack in books ;-)