Salmonella in garden birds responsive to antibiotics

... Research showed that these strains were a fairly distinct population of bacteria and well adapted in garden birds. They were particularly common in finches - such as greenfinch, siskins and goldfinches - as well as house sparrows. Dr Paul Wigley, from the National Centre for Zoonosis at the Universit...

Bird Song Study Provides Clues to Human Speech Disorders

...fMRI method, researchers observed brain response patterns in 16 adult zebra finches during playback of the birds' own song, their tutor's song, an unfamiliar z...al mechanisms by which humans learn to make sounds. Songbirds such as zebra finches have specialized areas of their brains dedicated to communication. That is ...

finches in Biological News

Darwin's famous finches and Venter's marine microbes

Although the Galápagos finches were to play a pivotal role in the inception of Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, he had no inkling of their significance when he collected them during his voyage on the HMS Beagle. Similarly, it is hard to predict the impact the vast amount o...

Zebra finches remember songs dad sang

Researchers at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, believe they have located a place in the brain where songbirds store the memories of their parents' songs. The discovery has implications for humans, because humans and songbirds are among the few animals that learn to vocalize by imitatin...

Noise pollution negatively affects woodland bird communities, says CU-Boulder study

...ess than 3 percent on the quiet sites, said Francis. Francis said house finches and black-chinned hummingbirds produce vocalizations at higher acoustic fre...nd subsequently nest there, he said. Common in congested urban areas, house finches also are known to sing at higher frequencies in response to urban noise, sa...

Researchers see evidence of memory in the songbird brain

...f gene activity in the brain. Using DNA microarray analysis, the researchers measured changes in levels of messenger RNAs in the auditory forebrain of finches exposed to a new song. These mRNAs are templates that allow the cell to translate individual genes into the proteins that do the work of the cells. An...

Jeepers creepers: Climate change threatens endangered honeycreepers

...ability to remove or offset introduced threats and restore native forests from sea level to tree line," Atkinson said. Honeycreepers rival Darwin's finches in the Galapagos Islands in terms of their bill types and number of species that descended from a common founder. The birds specialize on food that i...

Songbird study from CSHL, CCNY provides concrete measure of biology's impact on culture

...some pointers to how languages may evolve. The study confirms that zebra finches raised in complete isolation do not sing the same song as they would if rai...e New York (CCNY). Bringing culture into the laboratory Young zebra finches learn to sing by imitating adult male songbirds. But when raised in isolati...

CCNY, CSHL biologists find birdsong of isolates reverts to norm over several generations

...arbor Laboratory (CSHL) have discovered that zebra finches raised in isolation will, over several generations... dissertation at CCNY, first generation male zebra finches raised in isolation produced an unstructured, ofte...pupil" relationship with a new generation of zebra finches that imitated their tutors' songs, but changed cer...

Darwin in a test tube

... Darwin collected and studied different species of finches on several of the Galapagos Islands. The finches differed in their beak structure some had thick, ... delicate ones. Darwin observed that the different finches were each adapted for the specific types of seeds ...

2 McGill researchers garner prestigious NSERC Steacie Fellowships

...e co-authored a much-cited study about a rarely seen pattern of "disruptive natural selection" leading to the creation of new species among the famous finches of the Galapagos Islands, originally studied by Darwin. Karim Nader's research group specializes in the esoteric area of memory and trauma. His res...

Practice as well as sleep may help birds learn new songs

...ogy, and Daniel Margoliash, Professor in Organismal Biology & Anatomy and in Psychology, report in this week's issue of Nature that when young zebra finches listen to an adult tutor's song and then practice singing, the activity of premotor neurons in the brain is altered during the following night's sleep...

finches in Biological Technology

Living the sweet life... in IT?

...ice (read screened-in porch). In between the e-mails and proposals, a conference call and some project planning, I couldn't help but notice the yellow finches zipping in and out from the feeder and one particularly spoiled cat stretched out in the sun to the fullest extent of the law. In the middle of this g...

Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) and Expression Profiling of Long-Range Projection Neurons

... earliest captures, and is not recommended. Method A. Animals, surgery, and tissue processing 1. 1. Adult zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) ranging in age from 90 days to 4 years were anesthetized in preparation for surgery, and placed in the stereotaxic apparatus. Fl...

finches in Biological Definition

Adaptive radiation

...was unreachable before. For example, the Darwin's finches on the Galapagos islands developed from a single species of finches that reached the islands. Other examples include ...elf undergoes rapid divergent evolution. Darwin's finches are examples of adaptive radiation occurring in a...

Charles Darwin

... that this also applied to Galpagos tortoises and finches . The natives of Tierra del Fuego appeared to...ken to be wrens, blackbirds and slightly differing finches from the Galpagos were all separate species of fin...rs, including FitzRoy's, he was able to relate the finches to separate islands. When in London Charles stay...