by Hannah Krakauer Kanzi the bonobo continues to impress. Not content with learning sign language or making up "words" for things like banana or juice, he now seems capable of making stone tools on a par with the efforts of early humans. Eviatar Nevo of the University of Haifa in Israel and his colleagues sealed food inside a log to mimic marrow locked inside long bones, and watched Kanzi, a 30-year-old male bonobo chimp, try to extract it. While a companion bonobo attempted the problem a handful of times, and succeeded only by smashing the log on the ground, Kanzi took a longer and arguably more sophisticated approach. Both had been taught to knap flint flakes in the 1990s, holding a stone core in one hand and using another as a hammer. Kanzi used the tools he created to come at the log in a variety of ways: inserting sticks into seams in the log, throwing projectiles at it, and employing stone flints as choppers, drills, and scrapers. In the end, he got food out of 24 logs, while his companion managed just two. Perhaps most remarkable about the tools Kanzi created is their resemblance to early hominid tools. Both bonobos made and used tools to obtain food – either by extracting it from logs or by digging it out of the ground. But only Kanzi's met the criteria for both tool groups made by early Homo: wedges and choppers, and scrapers and drills. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Evolution; Language
Link ID: 17191 - Posted: 08.22.2012

by Gilead Amit The bath of cells in avian eyes could prolong a delicate quantum state that helps to explain how some birds navigate using Earth's magnetic field. It is thought that light reacts with receptors in the birds' eyes to produce two molecules with unpaired electrons, whose spins are linked by a special state called quantum entanglement. If the relative alignment of the spins is affected by Earth's magnetic field, the electron pair can cause chemical changes that the bird can sense. In 2009, researchers at the University of Oxford calculated that such entanglement must last for at least 100 microseconds for the internal compass to work. But how the sensitive state of quantum entanglement could survive that long in the eye was a mystery. Calculations by Zachary Walters of the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden, Germany, now show that interactions with cells in the bird's eye allow the electron pairs to stay entangled for longer through a dampening effect. Rather like the way a car with stiff shock absorbers takes longer to stop bouncing after going over a bump, the signal from the electron pair dies away more slowly under strong interactions with the cellular bath. Predicting exactly how long entanglement is sustained won't be possible until the mechanism is better understood, says Walters. But he believes there's a good chance his model could account for the 100 microseconds. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 17190 - Posted: 08.22.2012

By Bruce Bower All too often, high school students have to decide whether to join in on gulping down booze with the cool kids or lighting up a cigarette with parking-lot rebels. A new study suggests that genetics plays a role in the likelihood that some teens will succumb to this kind of peer pressure. Adolescents generally report drinking and smoking a lot in schools with high levels of such behavior, and doing so relatively infrequently in schools with low levels of substance use. These trends were stronger in teens with two copies of a short version of a gene called 5HTT than peers with two long versions, sociologist Jonathan Daw of the University of Colorado Boulder reported August 18 at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting in Denver. Teens who had inherited one long and one short gene reported rates of alcohol and cigarette use that fell in between those of the other two groups, regardless of how much substance use occurred at their schools, Daw and his colleagues found. The 5HTT gene helps regulate transmission of serotonin, a chemical messenger in the brain. Daw’s team likens teens with the two short versions of the gene to social chameleons, more likely to conform to smoking and drinking styles of students around them than teens with one or no short variants. “Our data suggest that, alongside many other influences on adolescent substance use, genetics partly underlie individuals’ susceptibility to peer smoking and drinking,” Daw says. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 17189 - Posted: 08.22.2012

By Christie Wilcox Music has a remarkable ability to affect and manipulate how we feel. Simply listening to songs we like stimulates the brain’s reward system, creating feelings of pleasure and comfort. But music goes beyond our hearts to our minds, shaping how we think. Scientific evidence suggests that even a little music training when we’re young can shape how brains develop, improving the ability to differentiate sounds and speech. With education funding constantly on the rocks and tough economic times tightening many parents’ budgets, students often end up with only a few years of music education. Studies to date have focused on neurological benefits of sustained music training, and found many upsides. For example, researchers have found that musicians are better able to process foreign languages because of their ability to hear differences in pitch, and have incredible abilities to detect speech in noise. But what about the kids who only get sparse musical tutelage? Does picking up an instrument for a few years have any benefits? The answer from a study just published in the Journal of Neuroscience is a resounding yes. The team of researchers from Northwestern University’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory tested the responses of forty-five adults to different complex sounds ranging in pitch. The adults were grouped based on how much music training they had as children, either having no experience, one to five years of training, or six to eleven years of music instruction. © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: Hearing; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 17188 - Posted: 08.22.2012

Kathryn Lougheed A chemical in llama semen responsible for inducing ovulation in females has been identified and, surprisingly, it is a protein already known for its role in promoting the growth and survival of nerve cells in many species1. The protein — nerve growth factor (NGF) — is also found in human semen, suggesting that it may play a previously unsuspected role in human fertility. Whereas many animals, including humans, cattle and mice, produce eggs as part of a cycle of spontaneous ovulation, others — including llamas, camels, rabbits and koalas — are ‘induced ovulators’ that need a chemical stimulus. In 2005, Gregg Adams, a veterinary surgeon and reproductive scientist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and his colleagues showed that in llamas, the stimulus was in the seminal fluid2. In the latest study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1, Adams led a team that identified the chemical as NGF. Although human women do not require NGF in semen to ovulate, Adams says that the protein could still have a direct effect on human fertility. Earlier this year, he published a paper3 showing that llama seminal fluid shortens the ovulation cycles of cows and seems to stimulate the development of the corpus luteum — a structure inside the ovaries that forms after an egg has been released and secretes hormones vital to pregnancy. In some cases, NGF could explain why some couples find it difficult to conceive, says Adams. A couple could have fertility problems if either the man failed to produce enough NGF in his semen or the woman lacked the receptors to detect and respond to it, he says. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 17187 - Posted: 08.22.2012

By Brett Israel and Environmental Health News A widely used pesticide – banned in homes but still commonly used on farms – appears to harm boys’ developing brains more than girls’, according to a new study of children in New York City. In boys, exposure to chlorpyrifos in the womb was associated with lower scores on short-term memory tests compared with girls exposed to similar amounts. The study is the first to find gender differences in how the insecticide harms prenatal development. Scientists say the finding adds to evidence that boys’ brains may be more vulnerable to some chemical exposures. “This suggests that the harmful effects of chlorpyrifos are stronger among boys, which indicates that perhaps boys are more vulnerable to this type of exposure,” said Virginia Rauh, a perinatal epidemiologist at Columbia University and co-author of the study published in July. Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate insecticide, a powerful class of pesticide that has toxic effects on nervous systems. It was widely used in homes and yards to kill cockroaches and other insects, but in 2001 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned its residential use because of health risks to children. Since then, levels inside U.S. homes have dropped [PDF], but residue remains in many homes. In addition, many developing countries still use the pesticide indoors. Known by the Dow trade name Lorsban, chlorpyrifos is still sprayed on some crops, including fruit trees and vegetables, and also is used on golf courses and for mosquito control. About 10 million pounds of chlorpyrifos are applied to agricultural fields annually, according to the EPA. © 2012 Scientific American,

Keyword: Neurotoxins; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 17186 - Posted: 08.22.2012

Posted by Kathleen Raven Families with autistic children must navigate a condition where questions outnumber the answers, and therapies remain sparse and largely ineffective. A clinical trial being conducted by the Sutter Neuroscience Institute in Sacramento, California to address this situation began recruiting participants today for a highly experimental stem cell therapy for autism. The institute plans to find 30 autistic children between ages 2 and 7 with cord blood banked at the privately-run Cord Blood Registry, located about 100 miles west of the institute. Already one other clinical trial, with 37 total participants between ages 3 and 12 years old, has been completed in China. The researchers affiliated with Beike Biotechnology in Shenzhen, the firm that sponsored the study, have not yet published any papers from that the trial, which used stem cells from donated cord blood. Mexican researchers are currently recruiting kids for yet another type of autism stem cell trial that will harvest cells from the participant’s fat tissue. But for each of these officially registered trials, many more undocumented stem cell therapy treatments take place for clients who are willing to pay enough. “Our research is important because many people are going to foreign countries and spending a lot of money on therapy that may not be valid,” says Michael Chez, a pediatric neurologist and lead investigator of the study at Sutter. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group,

Keyword: Autism; Stem Cells
Link ID: 17185 - Posted: 08.22.2012

By Jonathan Ball BBC News Young male fruit flies learn the smell of a receptive female to avoid wasting their sexual efforts, research shows. Promiscuous male flies initially court all females, but are rejected by those who have already mated. It is clear that the flies eventually learn to spot mated females, but just how they do has remained a mystery. Research published in Nature suggests that they smell a chemical signal called a pheromone left by other males during mating. The studies were performed using the common fruit fly - Drosophila melanogaster. This insect is used widely in genetic studies because they are easy to grow and they reproduce quickly - but principally because it is possible to generate and study flies that possess changes - or mutations - in their genetic material. In the study, Prof Barry Dickson and colleagues from the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria, performed a series of studies to identify the mechanism that led to this change in behaviour in older flies. Using complementary approaches, the team showed that a pheromone called cVA was responsible. Pheromones are substances produced by one individual which modify the behaviour of another. They are widely known to work in the animal kingdom to warn of danger, define territories or attract mates. Mosquito The finding could be used for the control of other insects such as mosquitoes, which spread malaria BBC © 2012

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 17184 - Posted: 08.20.2012

A Brazilian construction worker has survived after a 2m (six-foot) steel rod fell from above and pierced his head, doctors who treated him say. Eduardo Leite was taken to a Rio de Janeiro hospital, where the rod was removed after five hours of surgery. The doctors said Mr Leite, who is expected to spend some two weeks under their care, had responded well to surgery. He narrowly escaped partial paralysis and loss of an eye, they added. The rod is said to have fallen from the fifth floor of a building under construction. It pierced Mr Leite's hard hat, then the back of his skull, before exiting between his eyes. Luiz Alexandre Essinger, chief of staff at the Miguel Couto hospital, said Mr Leite was conscious when he arrived there and explained what had happened to him. "He was taken to the operating room, his skull was opened, they examined the brain and the surgeon decided to pull the metal bar out from the front in the same direction it entered the brain," he said. Mr Leite had "few complaints" after the surgery, Mr Essinger added, saying "it really was a miracle" that he survived. BBC © 2012

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 17183 - Posted: 08.20.2012

By Melissa Dahl, NBC News You lost 15 pounds! And gained it back. And lost it! And gained it back. It's been this way for years, so long that you've begun to believe that you've mucked up your metabolism, not to mention your odds of ever taking that weight off permanently. But take heart, yo-yo dieters: A new study suggests that your history of gaining and losing, gaining and losing, actually doesn't screw up your metabolism, nor does it wreck your chances at future weight loss attempts. The new research, recently published in the journal Metabolism, provides some hopeful news for those who've tried a series of diet fads and serious programs -- Weight Watchers, paleo, cleanses -- only to put that weight right back on. Advertise | AdChoices "Just because you didn't reach or keep to a goal before doesn't mean you won't succeed if you try again," says Anne McTiernan, a researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, whose work is primarily concerned with how diet and exercise affect a person's cancer risk. Up to 40 percent of people in Westernized countries like the U.S. have a tendency toward weight cycling, as it's academically termed. Previous studies have turned up mixed findings on the ways our bodies and behavior changes after repeated periods of weight loss and gain. But it's a commonly held belief that yo-yo diets increase our likelihood of gaining weight over time. Still, few studies have been able to prove this, so McTiernan set out to do so. © 2012 NBCNews.com

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 17182 - Posted: 08.20.2012

by Sara Reardon The carnival trick of guessing a person's age has just gained a lot more rigour. A new brain imaging technique can predict a child's age to within a year. The technique could be useful for determining whether a child is developing normally, or confirm that a young person is the age they say they are. There is no doubt that children of the same age often have vast differences in their maturity and mental ability, says Timothy Brown of the University of California in San Diego. But what hasn't been clear is how much of that difference is psychological and how much is biological. To simplify the question, Brown and his colleagues looked at brain structure rather than brain activity. Working with 10 hospitals in different parts of the US, they recruited 885 children and young adults between the ages of 3 and 20. They ensured that the participants represented many different races, socioeconomic statuses and education levels. The group performed structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the young peoples' brains. The images showed features such as the size of each brain region, the level of connectivity between neurons, and how much white matter was insulating the neurons. By putting all these features together in an algorithm, the researchers formed a picture of what the average brain looks like at each year of childhood. Different areas and features of the brain varied between individuals, but the algorithm correctly predicted a child's age to within a year in 92 per cent of cases. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Brain imaging
Link ID: 17181 - Posted: 08.18.2012

By Jason G. Goldman The largest fish in the ocean is the whale shark (Rhincodon typus). This massive, migratory fish can grow up to twelve meters in length, but its enormous mouth is designed to eat the smallest of critters: plankton. While the biggest, the whale shark isn’t the only gigantic filter-feeding shark out there: the basking shark and the megamouth shark also sieve enormous amounts of the tiny organisms from the sea in order to survive. While scientists like Al Dove and Craig McClain (of Deep Sea News) are learning more and more about the basic biology and behavior of these magnificent creatures, other scientists are busy investigating their neuroanatomy. A few years ago, Kara E. Yopak and Lawrence R. Frank from the University of California in San Diego got their hands on two whale shark brains from an aquarium, and put them into an MRI scanner. But they weren’t just interested in imaging the brains of the whale sharks. What they wanted to know was how the organization of whale shark brains compared to the brains of other shark species for which scientists had previously obtained neuroanatomical data. Would the brains of two species be more similar if they shared a recent evolutionary ancestor, and were therefore more genetically related? Or would shark brains be more similar among species that shared a similar lifestyle, such as those that patrol the middle and surface of the water column (pelagic sharks, such as the great white, oceanic whitetip, blue, mako, and whale sharks) versus those that live along the sea floor (benthic sharks, such as the nurse and cat sharks). Or perhaps the brains of sharks would be grouped according to their habitat, such as those that live in coastal waters, around reefs, or in the open ocean. Maybe sharks brains ought to be grouped according to behavioral specialization, such as hunting methods. Answers to these questions could shed some important light on brain evolution, both in sharks as well as more generally. © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: Evolution; Brain imaging
Link ID: 17180 - Posted: 08.18.2012

Sandrine Ceurstemont, Most of us would probably find it difficult to remember everything we did yesterday. But for a small group of people with near-perfect memory, autobiographical events from decades ago can be recalled just as easily as scrolling through a DVD. Sean Conlon, a food and beverages director from Baltimore, Maryland, and Frank Healy, a counsellor based in Pennsylvania, are two of about 30 people now confirmed to possess highly superior autobiographical memory. In this video, you can watch them recall life events from specific dates without prior preparation. Since the dates coincide with historical events, we were able to check that they weren't making it up. The two men recently had their brain scanned by memory researcher James McGaugh and colleagues from the University of California, Irvine, whose work is now revealing differences in certain memory regions for people with the ability. The team also found that super-memorisers share some of the hallmarks of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Conlon claims that he doesn't have obsessive tendencies, other than being preoccupied with his past. Healy, however, admits that he's quite germ-phobic: at restaurants he will go and wash his hands as soon as he places his order. Both men have found their memory to be advantageous in their jobs. "It helps me if I have a client who stops therapy for a year or two and then returns," says Healy. "I'm instantly able to remember their birthday, their issues and everything about them." © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 17179 - Posted: 08.18.2012

By Bruce Bower A callous, manipulative psychopath convicted of a brutal crime can count on a long prison stint. But a judge may issue a slightly shorter sentence if presented with a biological explanation for the criminal’s psychopathic personality. Supplying judges with scientific evidence about suspected brain deficits in psychopathy led to a reduction in prison sentences from about 14 years to 13 years, researchers report in the Aug. 17 Science. The results come from a nationwide, online survey of state judges given a hypothetical scenario about a psychopath convicted of what lawyers call aggravated battery. Judges taking the survey tended to view psychopathic criminals as dangerous, whether or not scientific evidence was introduced, say psychologist Lisa Aspinwall, lawyer Teneille Brown and philosopher James Tabery, all of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. A hypothetical psychopath in the new study got sent to the slammer for longer than the average nine-year sentence given to non-psychopaths found guilty of aggravated battery in real courts. Aspinwall and her colleagues informed judges that clinicians use psychopathy — which is not an official psychiatric diagnosis — to refer to individuals who are impulsive, emotionally shallow, outwardly charming, lacking in empathy or remorse, chronic liars and callous manipulators (SN: 12/9/06, p. 379). Judges were told that psychopathy is incurable. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Keyword: Aggression
Link ID: 17178 - Posted: 08.18.2012

by Michael Marshall Big and strong predators are dangerous enough, but clever ones are the worst. There's nothing more annoying than realising you've been outwitted in the seconds before you're disembowelled. Killer whales are some of the smartest predators on Earth. They can climb onto beaches to catch sea lions, stun fish by slapping them with their tails, and create waves to knock seals off ice floes. That might be because they learn from each other. They are one of the few animals that can imitate behaviours that they haven't seen before, and they are ferociously quick students. Despite their name, killer whales are actually dolphins – albeit rather large ones. Populations in different areas are quite dissimilar, and genetic evidence suggests that there are actually several species. A key difference between populations is that they target different prey, using different techniques. In the Crozet Islands in the Indian Ocean, whales strand themselves on beaches to hunt southern elephant seals. In Patagonia, they hunt sea lions in the same way. Beaching oneself on purpose is unusual, and it takes young killer whales years to get the hang of it. Even at five or six years old, they often need their mothers' help to get back off the beach. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Aggression
Link ID: 17177 - Posted: 08.18.2012

By Linda Carroll Scientists have long assumed that fading memories are just a normal part of aging. But a new study suggests that certain 80-somethings can remember every bit as well as people much younger. Researchers from Northwestern University found that these mentally sharp octogenarians, dubbed SuperAgers, also have brains that look very much like those of people in middle-age, according to the study published in the Journal of International Neuropsychological Society. For the new study, researchers used MRIs to look at the thickness of the outer layer of the brain, a region called the cortex, in SuperAgers, normally aging 80-somethings, and healthy 50- to 65-year-olds. What they found was intriguing – the SuperAgers had brains that looked very much like those of the younger people in the study and in some ways looked even healthier. "We were very surprised at that," says study co-author Emily Rogalski, an assistant research professor at the cognitive neurology and Alzheimer's disease center at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine "When we looked at cortical thickness, we were very shocked to see that even with a 20- to 30-year age gap, there was seemingly no difference in the cortical thickness," she says. "In normally aging 80-year-olds, you see quite a bit of cortical thinning, even among those who are still performing normally for their age." © 2012 NBCNews.com

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 17176 - Posted: 08.18.2012

by Jessica Hamzelou COULD we stem the tide of ageing by delaying the deterioration of stem cells? A new compound that appears to do just that could help us find ways to protect our organs from age-related wear and tear, experiments in mice suggest. As we age, so do our mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs): their numbers in our bone marrow decline, and those that are left lose the ability to differentiate into the distinct cell types - such as bone, cartilage, fat and possibly muscle cells - that help in the healing process. "We think this ageing of stem cells may be linked to the onset of some age-related disorders, such as osteoporosis," says Ilaria Bellantuono at the University of Sheffield in the UK. Earlier research in mice had suggested that the prion protein expressed by MSCs might play a role in holding back stem cell ageing. Mice lacking the prion protein were less able to regenerate blood cells. The study provided more evidence that correctly folded prions serve a useful purpose in the body, despite the role that misfolded prions play in BSE and vCJD. Bellantuono and her colleagues have now found that the prion protein performs a similar function in humans - older MSCs from human bone marrow expressed less of the protein than younger ones. In a bid to find a compound that might slow MSC ageing, the team tested numerous molecules known to target prion proteins on dishes of human stem cells. One molecule emerged as a potential candidate - stem cells treated with it produced 300 times the number of cells over 250 days than untreated stem cells. The treated cells kept on dividing for longer. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Prions; Stem Cells
Link ID: 17175 - Posted: 08.18.2012

by Molly Docherty The brain drain is real. There is a network of previously unrecognised vessels that rid the brain of unwanted extracellular fluids and other substances, including amyloid-beta – a peptide that accumulates in the brain of people with Alzheimer's. The new discovery looks set to add to our understanding of the disease. Jeffrey Iliff at the University of Rochester Medical Center, New York, and his colleagues, were intrigued by the fact that there are no obvious lymphatic vessels in the brain. Among other things, the lymphatic system removes waste interstitial fluids from body tissue. "It seemed strange that such an important and active organ wouldn't have a specialised waste-removal system," says Iliff. When the researchers added fluorescent and radioactive tracers to the cerebrospinal fluid of live mice, the tracers quickly spread throughout the rodents' brains. Using two-photon microscopy to visualise the movement in real-time, the team saw cerebrospinal fluid permeating the entire brain through 'pipes' surrounding blood vessels, similar to the lymphatic system that services all other organs. The pipes work on hydraulic principles, though, and so the system breaks upon opening, making it hard to identify it outside living organisms. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 17174 - Posted: 08.16.2012

by Jessica Hamzelou When something goes wrong in your brain, you'd think it would be a good idea to get rid of the problem. Turns out, sometimes it's best to keep hold of it. By preventing faulty proteins from being destroyed, researchers have delayed the symptoms of a degenerative brain disorder. SNAP25 is one of three proteins that together make up a complex called SNARE, which plays a vital role in allowing neurons to communicate with each other. In order to work properly, all the proteins must be folded in a specific way. CSP alpha is one of the key proteins that ensures SNAP25 is correctly folded. Cells have a backup system to deal with any misfolded proteins – they are destroyed by a bell-shaped enzyme called a proteasome, which pulls the proteins inside itself and breaks them down. People with a genetic mutation that affects the CSP alpha protein – and its ability to correctly fold SNAP25 – can develop a rare brain disorder called neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (NCL). The disorder causes significant damage to neurons – people affected gradually lose their cognitive abilities and struggle to move normally. To find out what role proteasomes might play in NCL, Manu Sharma and his colleagues at Stanford University in California blocked the enzyme in mice that were bred to lack CSP alpha. "We weren't sure what would happen," says Sharma. Either the misfolded SNAP25 would accumulate and harm the cells, or some of the misfolded proteins may work well enough to retain some of their function. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 17173 - Posted: 08.16.2012

by Emily Underwood In the Hans Christian Andersen tale "The Nightingale," a songbird melts an emperor's heart with its singing, but flies away when the ruler forces it to sing duets with a jeweled, mechanical bird that warbles only waltzes. There's a moral here, a new study suggests. Although humans have long attributed musical qualities to birdsong, cold, hard statistics show that's all an illusion. The birds we prize most for their songs sound most like the human voice, says Robert Zatorre, a cognitive neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who was not involved in the study. The sounds they make have clear tones, repeat similar phrases, and are made of discrete notes. Despite these pleasing attributes, however, it has never been scientifically proven that the notes in birdsong follow the same organizational rules that govern most musical compositions. In fact, says ecologist Marcelo Araya-Salas of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, author of the new study, no one has ever addressed the question using quantitative methods. Billions of potential notes exist between the low and high notes in an octave. But for reasons that researchers only partially understand—the physiological limits of human hearing, for example, and cultural preferences that have evolved over time—most music is based on variations of only five to 12 notes. A baby grand piano, which has 88 keys, is tuned so that each octave is divided into twelve equal intervals, called half-steps, that form the 12-note chromatic scale underlying most of Western music. The seven-note diatonic scale, "do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti (do)," is another familiar example, as is the ancient five-note, pentatonic scale used in Greek lyre music and nearly every riff played on the electric guitar. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Animal Communication; Language
Link ID: 17172 - Posted: 08.16.2012