Bird brains offer clues to origins of speech
Why songbirds find syntax sexy
Tim Radford
Monday February 17, 2003
The Guardian
The brains of songbirds could throw new light on humanity's outstanding
evolutionary card - the ability to talk, writes Tim Radford.
Hummingbirds, songbirds and certain parrots have something in common: the
ability to go on learning new sounds and to use syntax to arrange them in
ever more complex ways.
Erich Jarvis, a neurobiologist at Duke University, North Carolina, told the
AAAS that the three groups of birds also shared the same brain pattern, with
distinctive development of receptors at seven different places in their
brains. The shared brain structure suggested the machinery for the evolution
of vocal learning.
Full text
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,897048,00.html
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