Tag: "pitch" at biology news

Bird Brains Show How Trial and Error May Contribute to Learning

...show up a few notes later as a change in volume or pitch at a particular time in the song. The variations ...note in different directions, one area raising the pitch of a certain note and another area lowering its frequency. The moment-by-moment influence of this br...

Scientists journey to southern Africa to unravel the secret world of elephant communication

...ts emit a variety of infrasounds--calls too low in pitch to be heard by most humans. In 1989, Payne and her colleagues conducted a landmark experiment at a waterhole in Etosha demonstrating that these powerful infrasonic rumbles contain specific messages that can be heard and understood by other elephants ...

Team Invents Device For Weighing Individual Molecules

...y of mechanical vibration, although at such a high pitch that the "notes" are nearly as high in frequency as microwaves. The researchers set up electronic circuitry to continually excite and monitor the frequency of the vibrating bar. Intermittently, a shutter is opened to expose the nanodevice to an atom...

Bats use touch receptors on wings to fly, catch prey, study finds

...le to fly and turn effectively, but they tended to pitch forward because they couldn't control their in-flight balance. Zook's research also points to the importance of a second type of receptor cell in the membranous part of bats' wings. Nerve recordings revealed that these receptors respond when the mem...

Born with a love of speech

...hey also contain a fundamental frequency ?the core pitch of a voice, such as baritone or soprano, that helps us clue in to the identity of a voice. These non-speech stimuli were developed by Drs. Sonya Bird and Guy Carden in the Department of Linguistics and Dr. Janet Werker in the Department of Psychology...

Study shows hope for ridding lakes of clawed invader

...some degree sunfish - bluegills and pumpkinseeds - pitch in by eating the smallest crayfish. The Wisconsin DNR, by manipulating the bag and size limits for anglers fishing Sparkling Lake, has helped establish an optimal population of the fish that routinely dine on the crayfish. The trapping on Sparkling...

Master planners in brain may coordinate other areas' roles in cognitive tasks

... a symphony, with specialized sections required to pitch in at the right time to produce the desired melody, then the regions highlighted by the new study may be likened to conductors, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis assert. "They appear to be helping to determine whic...

Genomic comparison of lactic acid bacteria published

With public concerns at a fevered pitch over the bacterial contamination of spinach, it is easy to lose track of how bland and deprived our world would be without the contribution to our food supply of such benign microbial players as lactic acid-producing bacteria. Researchers from the U....

Mosquito repellents that emit high-pitched sounds don't prevent bites

...nic mosquito repellents (EMRs) claim that the high pitch sound they emit repels female mosquitoes, and therefore protects people in the vicinity from bites and disease. To test these claims a team of Cochrane Researchers conducted a systematic review looking for trials conducted with EMRs. They located ...

Research finds music training 'tunes' human auditory system

..., a single word can differ in meaning depending on pitch patterns called "tones." For example, the Mandarin...eans "rice." English, on the other hand, only uses pitch to reflect intonation (as when rising pitch is used in questions). As the subjects watched the ...

Male owls pitch their hoots to advertise body weight to competitors

...rom 17 territorial males and demonstrated that the pitch of the vocalization reflects the body weight of the male: the heavier the male, the lower the pitch of his hoots. In order to see whether this information is actually used by male owls during territor...

1