[TN-Bird] Dancing bird sparks research

  • From: Thais Carr <thaiscarr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:55:59 -0600

I thought this was pretty interesting and thought I'd share it.
Thais Carr, Thompsons Station


  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJOZp2ZftCw&feature=channel
> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJOZp2ZftCw&amp;feature=channel>
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/12/14/magazine/2008_IDEAS.html?8dpc
> Avian Dancing


> By REBECCA SKLOOT
> If you aren?t one of the millions who have already done so, go immediately to
> YouTube and search for ?Snowball the Dancing Cockatoo.?
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7IZmRnAo6s
> There you will see a large white bird balanced on the back of an office chair,
> bobbing his head, stomping his feet and doing something that ? until now ?
> scientists believed impossible: dancing just like a human. This is good fun.
> It?s also good science: Snowball?s videos are changing the way researchers
> understand the neurology of music and dancing.
> Aniruddh Patel, senior fellow at the Neurosciences Institute in California,
> got the link from a friend. He saw not just a funny bird but also a potential
> solution to a scientific argument dating back to Darwin: some researchers say
> that human brains have been specially wired by natural selection for dancing,
> because dancing confers survival benefits through group bonding. If that were
> true, according to Patel, you would see dancing only in animals that, like
> humans, have a long history of music and dance, which no other species has.
> The fact that only humans dance has long been seen as evidence supporting the
> evolution argument.
> 
> So Patel sent an e-mail message to Snowball?s owner, Irena Schulz, and asked
> to study her bird. ?The obvious question was whether he was just mimicking
> somebody,? Patel said. To answer that, he made CDs of Snowball?s favorite song
> (?Everybody (Backstreet?s Back)? by the Backstreet Boys) at various speeds.
> Schulz videotaped Snowball dancing to each version, and then Patel graphed
> Snowball?s movement against the music?s beat. ?Like a child, he synched to the
> music for stretches of time, then danced a little faster or a little slower,
> but always in a rhythmic way,? Patel says. ?Statistically those periods when
> he?s locked onto the beat are not by chance ? they really do indicate
> sensitivity to the beat and an ability to synchronize with it.?
> 
> What?s most interesting to Patel is that this ability is present in birds but
> not in primates, our closest animal relatives. ?This is no coincidence,? he
> says. Patel says dancing is associated with our vocal abilities, not musical
> hard wiring. Humans and parrots are two of the few species with brains wired
> for vocal learning ? hearing sounds (like words), then coordinating complex
> movements (lips, tongues, vocal cords) to reproduce those sounds. Other
> animals who have this ability: dolphins, seals and whales. ?In theory,? he
> says, ?they may be able to dance, too. We just don?t know it yet.?
> 
>  
>  





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