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Birds Found Using Human Musical Scales For the First Time
sciencehabit writes The flutelike songs of the male hermit thrush are some of the most beautiful in the animal kingdom. Now, researchers have found that these melodies employ the same mathematical principles that underlie many Western and non-Western musical scales—the first time this has been seen in any animal outside humans. It's doubtful that the similarity is due to the physics of the birds' vocal tract, the team reports. Rather, it seems male hermit thrushes choose to sing notes from these harmonic series. It may be that such notes are easier for the males to remember, or provide a ready yardstick for their chief critics—female hermit thrushes. The study adds to other research indicating that human music is not solely governed by cultural practices, but is also at least partially determined by biology.
Turns out, it might have been a couple of bluejays getting horny!!!
The only thing missing was the sound of the thermin...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Bird Reporter: This just in! Humans now claiming ownership of our musical scales.
When I used to live in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains some decades ago, there was a bird whose song I could hear right about dusk every night. It would sing the first few notes of "The Way You Look Tonight". I was even able to pick out the exact pitches on my chromatic harmonica. The song is in Eb and the bird was in perfect tune. Bb, Eb, F.
I never did find out what bird it was, and only lived there for a matter of months. There were so many songbirds around there, it really did sound like Messiaen sometimes. And then all of a sudden...it would get absolutely quiet. Then they'd come back little by little.
There was also a rooster that would wake me up at daybreak, but I didn't appreciate that nearly as much.
The last few times I was in Europe, I noticed a significant absence of songbirds (and birds in general, in fact). Of course there are pigeons all over the cities, but very few songbirds.
Regarding birds, and offtopic, if you want to read a really interesting book, I recommend A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction, by Joel Greenberg. I'm not a birder or even much for nature, having grown up in downtown Chicago, but this book, which someone gave me as a gift, blew my mind. It's a hell of a story. Here, if anyone is interested:
http://www.amazon.com/Feathere...
It was so interesting that I'm thinking about reading another book that I heard was about the now-extinct passenger pigeon, The Silent Sky, which is actually about the last of the species that died in the early part of the 20th century..
You are welcome on my lawn.
I guess you know everything.
He who lives in a glass house should not throw stones. Pot meet kettle. Etc.. This is just a sampling of your bashing other people over the past 7 days.
So......do you understand the greenhouse effect or not?
you're not understanding the scale of things involved
Do you lack reading comprehension?
do you actually understand the science involved?
My first instinct was to completely ignore you, but I figured it would only be fair to warn you before I blocked you out completely.
SystemD is trying to make a clean bootup system. Who doesn't like that?
Surely you understand that. Furthermore, another way you are also wrong
I'm kind of surprised you found it difficult, actually.
does it really bother you that much when someone implies you might be stupid
You got it wrong too.
Try taking your own advice:
Someone else doing something wrong isn't a justification to also do something wrong.