Zebra finch songs aren’t innate; baby zebra finches have to learn how to sing their songs from their parents and siblings. When they rehearse these songs, their brains fire in a specific pattern. Research has found that these patterns regularly fire during their sleep too. Could they be dreaming about their own songs? While it’s inconclusive, there’s some evidence that points to a “yes.” The finches’ throats also move, as if they were silently singing! That likely means that some form of memory recall is triggering the throat. Read full article here
Science
‘Ghostly’ neutrinos provide new path to study protons
In groundbreaking research, an international collaboration of scientists from the University of Rochester have used a beam of neutrinos to measure the size and shape of the protons that make up the nuclei of atoms. This feat, once thought impossible, provides scientists with a new way of looking at the small components of an atom’s nucleus and opens up a wealth of new information about the structure of an atom’s nucleus and the dynamics of the forces that affect neutrino interactions. The researchers solved the challenge of harnessing neutrinos in large numbers by using a neutrino detector containing a target of both hydrogen and carbon atoms, and over nine years of data collection at Fermilab’s accelerator. Read full article here
Merv
March 25, 2023
