Like humans who can instantly tell which friend or relative is calling by the timbre of the person's voice, zebra finches have a near-human capacity for language mapping. If songbirds could appear on ...

A baby's babbling may sound like nonsense, but it's actually an extended act of trial-and-error learning. As babies produce ...

If songbirds could appear on "The Masked Singer" reality TV competition, zebra finches would likely steal the show. That's because they can rapidly memorize the signature sounds of at least 50 ...

The song of a small bird is providing valuable insights into human speech and speech disorders. Scientists have now discovered that some 2,000 genes in a brain region of a male bird called the zebra ...

To us, bird song may just sound pretty. However, if we want to understand why birds sing, we have to consider that song may have multiple functions. A male’s song may serve to repel a male neighbor, ...

How to birds learn to sing? How do we learn to talk? And what happens when it goes wrong? Read more ...

Every time a zebra finch lands, takes off, or hops on the guitars' strings, the notes play through a nearby amplifier. Courtesy of Ben Mirin The young male zebra finch alighted on the nearest guitar ...

This story is part of our summer Book Club conversation about Jennifer Ackerman’s book ‘The Genius of Birds.’ Want to participate? Sign up for our newsletter or send us your thoughts on the SciFri ...

(This video is no longer available for streaming.) Birds have an undeserved reputation for low brainpower. In fact, they produce one of the most glorious phenomena in nature: birdsong. How do their ...