Parrot partying gets peer-review - May 01, 2009
Back in June last year Nature’s own Philip Ball reported on new research showing that a male sulphur-crested cockatoo named Snowball really can dance:
Aniruddh Patel of The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California, and his colleagues say that Snowball’s ability to shake his stuff is much more than a cute curiosity. It could shed light on the biological bases of rhythm perception, and might even hold implications for the use of music in treating neurodegenerative disease.
Patel and colleagues videoed Snowball’s movement to music and slowly altered the tempo of his tunes. Statistical analysis showed that he was synching to the beat. Now Patel’s research has been published in Current Biology, and the world’s media has gone predictably crazy.
“People are not the only ones who've got rhythm – birds can also get into the groove claim scientists,” says the Daily Telegraph. “Parrots join humans on the dance floor,” says NPR. The Daily Mail says Snowball’s musical taste is “questionable” as he generally dances to the Backstreet Boys, a fact that has led the Sun to brand him “Beakstreet Boy”.
Here’s what you all want to see:
See: Birds that boogie, 25 June 2008, for more.
