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Singing Mice and Brain Chemistry 188

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the disney-escapees dept.
Shirlockc writes "The Public Library of Science has a research article on how male mice actually sing in the presence of females. They actually posted some of the audios adjusted for human ears as these songs are ultrasonic. The authors are comparing these warbles to bird songs. The songs are quite complex so do the mice learn them and/or improve on them? This can be a potential model for investigating how brain chemistry works during learning."
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Singing Mice and Brain Chemistry More

Singing Mice and Brain Chemistry

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  • Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy (Score:5, Funny)

    by erkokite ( 862532 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:28PM (#13929172)
    This should not be a surprise. Mice are truly the smartest most intelligent species to inhabit the Earth, followed by dolphins, then humans.
    • Which makes it that much more important for us to geneticly enhance ourselves to trigger our ears to regrow in such a fashion to hear the range those evil mice are conversing in. Ha! They thought they had us fooled!

    • but seriously (Score:5, Funny)

      by Quadraginta ( 902985 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @01:28AM (#13929998)
      So why do the male mice sing to the females, eh? I mean, it's not like they need sound to find each other or tell the pitchers from the catchers -- they can sniff each other out in the total dark, et cetera.

      Why would natural selection push male mice to develop this talent?

      I sure don't know, but just for amusement I'll propose something along the lines of the OP's comment: suppose we argue an important characteristic of mice is that they are damn clever for their size. Seems likely they're a lot smarter, for example, than snakes or lizards or even birds of equivalent mass. Maybe they need smarts to succeed at a lifetime of scampering and hiding and thieving bits of food from larger predators.

      If this is so, maybe it makes sense that the smartest males want to advertise their intelligence, and females are interested in listening to those ads, so that they can pick out good genes for the pups.

      Now, clearly it takes brains to learn a complex song, spice it up with a couple of individual flourishes, and memorize it. So maybe what these mice fellas are doing by singing is advertising how smart they are. And maybe the girl mice by listening in are evaluating the sexy braininess of boy mice as it's expressed in their composition.

      It would be, in essence, the auditory equivalent of posting clever comments on /. and hoping horny girls mod you +5, Insightful Interesting Funny Yes Yes Oh Yes Take Me Now You Utter Stud.
      • Well you could ask the same thing about humans, and it'd be almost definitely the same reason (if only because of the close relation between the brains of humans and mice). We should all know that mice are creative especially in their problem solving abilities, as are humans, singing could be just an extension to that, and they might have some cool artistic skills.. Or it could also an incident of enhancing their hearing abilities and recognising patterns in sound, needed for escaping out of tricky situat
        • I believe that those "songs" are actually more akin to talk then to singing. The use of the word "song" in the article seems to be more like a word that have been used in ages of studies started with perhaps birds and frogs. At the same time, more specific concepts in the study, and perhaps more moderns, seem to use words that relate to talking and not so much to singing, like syllables and phrases.

          But then again there are syllables and phrases in music, aren't there? I may be completely wrong. To me the "s
          • I read it that they're "songs" only because they're stylized and repeated, not something created on the spot. So you could also call them "sayings" or "catch phrases" or "poems.", I suppose. I don't think it's a question of musical talent.

      • Re:but seriously (Score:3, Informative)

        by slavemowgli ( 585321 )

        Why would natural selection push male mice to develop this talent?

        I think you're misunderstanding how natural selection works if you assume that everything that developers (whether it's a physical feature or a character trait or something) has to have a direct advantage. It doesn't - it's also possible that it just developed as the secondary effect of some underlying cause.

        Case in point: the genitals of female spotted hyenas. (Look it up if you want details - suffice to say that it's not possible to v

        • I agree this is an important caution to bear in mind. It's a variant of what I call "The Sherlock Holmes" rule:

          Just because you have an explanation doesn't mean you have the explanation.

          I call it the SH rule because, when you read "Sherlock Holmes" stories, you always read about these brilliant, very long chains of logic by which Holmes figures out stuff that buffaloed Lestrade of the Yard. Holmes is always right, of course (ha ha, that buffoon Lestrade), even though his logic chain is so long that its ex

    • Re:Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by antic ( 29198 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:18AM (#13930905)

      I played these audio files on my laptop, and my cat woke up and started sniffing excitedly around the room until he'd narrowed the source down to the little speakers on the front of the laptop. Then, getting confused when he couldn't associate the sound with the correct smell, he looked at me and meowed for help.

      Makes me wonder if mouse songs are familiar to cats?

  • If only... (Score:2, Funny)

    by yamamushi ( 903955 )
    My singing attracted the ladies.. :-(
  • They are merely reciting all of the different types of cheese they have eaten in their lifetime. This is why more mature male mice have better songs (more cheese-eating opportunities). :)
    • They are merely reciting all of the different types of cheese they have eaten in their lifetime.

      Reminds me of Charles de Gaulle, the famous French leader:

      "How can you govern a country that has 246 different kinds of cheese?"
      • It can't be any harder than governing a country with 246 different flavors of religious leader, or 246 different flavors of insipid pop band, or 256 different words for snow, or 246 different genres of perverted comic books, or...

        Et tu, DeGaulle? My god, the French really are a nation of pathetic, whiny, defeatists.

        "The cheeses! Their variety is... how you say? Too much! Rule such a people? C'est impossible! Better anarchy and suffering than such a doomed ideal!"
        • Perhaps I shouldn't've bothered translating it, becuase you didn't get the joke even in English. Of course the cheese doesn't affect how you rule a country.

          And no, you can't come back and say your post was a joke too. It can't be a joke. It's a strong personal attack. Et on a battu le cheval mort way too much for jokes about French inferiority to retain any humor today.

          Maybe the French are a nation of pathetic, whiny defeatists, but at least they're pathetic, whiny defeatists with a sense of humor.
          • Jokes are probably the thing least likely to retain their meaning and value after translation. You'd probably have been better off just posting it in the original French.

            Why would I claim my post was a joke? Your funny got lost in translation. Clearly, all of my mean-spiritid distaste for French foreign and domestic policy came through quite clearly. But hey, if it gives the cake, I take the body out.
  • DJ Rat is recording his new mixed tape, which should be released early next Spring. The FCC; however, is not so thrilled, because the mixed tape "is one of the dirtiest fowlest things I have ever heard" said an FCC spokesman. "But it wasn't a suprise I guess, you know- he is a rat after all".

    • DJ Rat is recording his new mixed tape, which should be released early next Spring. The FCC; however, is not so thrilled, because the mixed tape "is one of the dirtiest fowlest things I have ever heard" said an FCC spokesman. "But it wasn't a suprise I guess, you know- he is a rat after all".

      The mix tape would be more fowl if it were written by a duck.

  • RIAA Officers Said (Score:4, Funny)

    by robbyjo ( 315601 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:33PM (#13929207) Homepage
    That's copyright infringemnt! Those mice songs are rip off from our records! ;P
  • Are they sure it wasn't the mouse equivalent of "Hey baby, are you a parking ticket? Cause you have 'fine' written all over you!"

  • Some Mouse Lyrics (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    CHEEEEEESE-ings, nothing more than cheeeeese-ings
    Trying to forget my CHEEEESE-ings for you

    CHEEEEEEESE-ings,
    Woah woah woah CHEEEEEESE-ings,
    Woah woah woah CHEEEEEESE-ings,
    OK, that's enough, I'm now annoying even myself.

  • Lyrics of Mouse Song now deciphered (Score:3, Funny)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:35PM (#13929227) Homepage Journal
    Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?

    M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E!

    Hey there, hi there, ho there, you're as welcome as can be.

    M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E!

    Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!) Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)

    Forever let us hold his banner high, high, HIGH, HIGH!!

    Come along and sing the song and join the jamboree.

    M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E!

  • you'll hear, "Hey babe, I got your provolone, right here! Want a piece? It's on me!"
  • Is it perhaps Dire Straits? After all, there is probably a shortage of Fuolornis Fire Dragons [stuba.sk] (read ch22 too) in the lab environment.

  • Hey (Score:5, Funny)

    by dirtsurfer ( 595452 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:43PM (#13929270) Journal
    I've been emitting high-pitched squeals whenever attractive women come near me for years. Why does nobody call it a "song" then? ;(

  • Howling Mice Already Discovered (Score:5, Interesting)

    by barakn ( 641218 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:44PM (#13929274)
    Grasshopper mice [worsleyschool.net] are known to howl and hunt for meat. They are the wolves of the mouse world.

    • Re:Howling Mice Already Discovered (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Pet fancy mice will do the same, although not exclusively. If anyone has a pet mouse, or their kids have one, drop a half-dead moth, grasshopper or other bug in with them. They'll show a level of predator you probably won't have seen before. They'll chase, leap upon, and deliver several killing stabs with their teeth in seconds, then sit down and finish off the bug, before going back to being mild mannered little cute mammals.

    • Re:Howling Mice Already Discovered (Score:4, Interesting)

      by JabberWokky ( 19442 ) <slashdot.com@timewarp.org> on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @10:09AM (#13931592) Homepage Journal
      Damn right... except... well... I hate to tell you this, but they aren't mice. You might as well point out that cats meow. They are small and covered in fur as well.

      Grasshopper mice aren't rats either... they are a completely different type of rodent that split off way before rats and mice were around. I've raised quite a few mus musculus (common mouse, both albino and all types of fancy; they are all one species), and have recently gotten into the vocal genus Peromyscus, which is the same tribe and subfamily as the grasshopper mouse.

      Audible sound in mus musculus is usually a sign of health issues. Peromyscus sing all the damn time. But the good news is that if you can get used to a few wheels turning all night, you can get used to rodents chirping and singing all night as well.

      That's what makes this nifty -- turns out mus musculus can sing as well... just not audibly to human ears.

      (As an aside, I think I might have heard them... I've had groups of mice curl up and sleep on my shoulder right under my ear while I'm reading and I have heard high pitched noises as they wake and push each other around. I have very good high frequency hearing; I can hear some "silent" burglar alarms that use an active sound and also all manner of CRT noises. I attributed it to protest sounds, but now I'm curious.)

      --
      Evan

      • What bitrate do you listen to your mp3s at?
        • I assume you're asking because of the high pitched tinkle and dropouts that mp3s have. Either that or you're trying to figure out if I'm an "audiophile".

          No, I'm not a weenie who thinks he can tell the difference between a two foot $2 copper cable and a two foot $180 copper cable or insists that vinyl is "more alive". Nor do I think my ears are somehow able to hear a gnat fart in Patagonia. I like music, not fetishizing fidelity. I lack perfect pitch or anything like that; I just happen to have good hea

          • Heh, really just to see if it made a difference for you as it does me - I'm blessed/cursed with a similar trait. During a hearing test a doctor found it necessary to keep repeating "tell me when you hear the sound stop" only, I hadn't yet heard the sound stop. As the test continued way beyond normal human range and through volumes one normally can't hear (I guess) he was very suprised that I hadn't halted the test. My sensitivity and upper range is way above normal for a human. As a result mp3s 256k are abs
            • Heh. Yeah - I can clearly tell the difference between 192k and CDs, even on cheap speakers. I assume it's the high pitched "tinkle" sound, almost like running water, that drives you nuts. I just happen to be able to ignore it. I think most people hear it to some extent, but the majority of it is cut out. I have trouble with the visual watermarks on film movies (the "burned braille" dots), but I can ignore most auditory distractions.

              In my case, I know it's genetic... my grandfather is the same way, as

  • Have you ever??? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hackstraw ( 262471 ) * on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:45PM (#13929276)
    Watched male and female humans in their late teens to mid 20's when they really want a "piece of the action"?

    Its almost amusing! Like watching the waggle dance of a bee or something.

    Seriously, if your in that age group, do whatever your hormones tell you to do. But for us outside of that, you guys and gals are really funny.

    And yes, I've "been there done that". It seemed right at the time (hormones again). But humans when they are at their most "animal-like" are pretty funny. Fights can be a part of it, but those are funny too all to themselves.
  • and already has recording mice patented and copyrighted. They are seeking to pass legislation through congress that will allow them to plug all of the analog holes these mice may have, unless the mice are genetically altered and the alteration is not open source.

  • Mr Adams was right (Score:5, Funny)

    by photon317 ( 208409 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:54PM (#13929329)

    Now we just need to work on reverse-engineering their secret ultrasonic communications so that we can find out what they plan to do with us.

  • Nerd gene (Score:2, Funny)

    by !emus ( 844423 )
    Though the article makes a brief reference to insects' mating vocalizations, it really doesn't capture the image of a male fruit fly running after a female with his wings out as he frantically "sings" to her. In doing a quick search for the genes responsible for producing the correct song in D. melanogaster I stumbled across this [indiana.edu] appropriately named gene.

  • A fun and safe experiment.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mikael ( 484 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:58PM (#13929353)
    Has anyone tried playing the original (ultrasonic) tracks in a room where there are cats?
    I am wondering if the cats would react?

    • This won't work on most systems, since most speakers for "general" use don't include ultrasonic frequencies.
      Speakers available for use with computers tend to have a range between ~15Hz and ~24kHz. The article says the mice sing at a frequency between 30kHz and 110kHz. Thus, the original tracks wouldn't play on most people's speakers.

      • Re:A fun and safe experiment.... (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Use a pieso speaker. They can be found in digital wristwaches (ones make sound, the flat copper colored disk) or on newer motherboards as a plugin speaker (little short tube with two wires - black and red one end - and an opening with copperish disk on the other) They can be obtained from RadioShack usually housed in black plasic and are round and flat, ranging in size from small coin to palm size. Piezzo speakers are used in ultra sonic equipment, with some skill you can build an ultrasonic gun, and train

      • Speakers available for use with computers tend to have a range between ~15Hz and ~24kHz. The article says the mice sing at a frequency between 30kHz and 110kHz. Thus, the original tracks wouldn't play on most people's speakers.

        Partly true, although speakers' frequency response tends to be attenuated gradually, so that at one frequency, it's N decibels quieter than at a frequency an octave lower on the high end, etc. So, the speakers may be capable of producing 110 kHz, just at a reduced level like may

        • Except for those pesky reconstruction filters (Score:5, Informative)

          by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @08:47AM (#13931144) Homepage Journal
          Except that even the cards with the 192kSample/sec DACs won't reproduce much above 20 kHz. Remember, in a proper design you have to follow the DAC with a reconstruction filter as your signal will have spectral aliases every Fs. The idea of running a 192 kSample/second rate is to allow the reconstruction filter to gradually roll off from 20kHz to the Nyquist frequency of 96kHz, rather than the rather sharp roll-off from 20kHz to 22.05 kHz you see in 44.1kSample/sec gear. You also avoid the sin(x)/x roll-off in the reconstructed audio, as the roll-off in a 96kHz Nyquist frequency system is still pretty flat at 20kHz.

          However, if you wanted to experiment with this, you could try to find an old (and I do mean old) Zenith remote control from the 1970's - they used ultrasound rather than IR as modern gear does, at about a 30kHz frequency. You could then drive that speaker from a DAC on the printer port, possibly with a simple timer chip to create the sample clock so that the computer "thinks" it is seeing a normal printer on the interface (that way you can avoid a great deal of the latency issues, especially if you use a printer port with a hardware FIFO.) You could eliminate the reconstruction filter as the transducer will do most of your filtering for you. Failing that, here [digikey.com] are some transducers that will Git 'R Done.
    • My roommate's yorkshire terriers are going nuts when I play it, and my St Bernard hasn't moved a muscle... It can't be something that they truly recognize, but they're running around my computer trying to find the source.
      • I believe that yorkies were originally bred to be mousers.

        Aha, here we go:
        In an effort to produce canines with exceptional skill at catching mice and rats, the common men of the day would breed only smallest, quickest and best ratters of the bunch. These men were not out to produce a purebred, sophisticated breed of dog; instead they desired the best dogs to keep the mice away. This is the reason why no records were kept as to what breeds were mixed to create the Yorkshire Terrier. (from http://news.aff [affari.to]

    • When I played the frequency-shifted (human audio range) versions on my laptop, our cat came running into the room, looking around frantically. Apparently his directional detection for high-frequencies isn't much better than mine...
    • Cats etc don't hear "ultrasound" as a distinct thing. They hear what is for them perfectly normal noise that happens to be high-pitched. But they'll as likely recognise an unusually low-pitched mouse call as you would recognise an unusually low pitched meow or bark.
  • That's just so damned cute though!

  • No Wonder.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by fyrie ( 604735 )
    I always wondered why there were so many female mice following Mariah Carey around. Those ain't vocal harmonics she's ripping, rather she's singing mouse love songs!
  • I've always thought those devices were 90% snake-oil, but after hearing those mouse recordings I guess they might work under some circumstances - they'd make it difficult to attract a mate, for example.

    Mind you, if noisy environments where you can't hear yourself think are inherently repellent, I guess all the nightclubs should have gone out of business years ago...

  • to the Hamster Dance.
  • A saying about how the "world will beat a path to your door" comes to mind. Why haven't I heard more about how this phenomenon might be used for rodent control? Surely the sounds could be either digitized and played back, or ... even better ... a heuristic process could listen to the male's response to a pheromone bait-trap, and then the 'gizmo' would warble back ... Am I the only one who is thinking this? Big money here. Rodents cause many millions of dollars of damage to grains stores annually.

  • Pinky and the Brain (Score:5, Funny)

    by Elitist_Phoenix ( 808424 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @11:24PM (#13929483)
    What are we going to do tonight pinky?
    We're going to do what we do every night...
    1..2..1..2..3..4...
    "New York, New York...."
  • Shame! None of you spotted the obvious Christmas beat-up. We're sure to see the return of those 'Chipmunk'-like music album gimicks in time for the festive season! Who said the RIAA and Music Industry couldn't get back at you?! ;-)
  • How hard did they squeeze these mice before they started singing? And who did they rat out? Or would that be mouse out?

    And finally, who is going to get in trouble for using torture methods to get these mice to sing?

  • In a related article (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Scientists around the world are baffled at the conclusion of this experiment. Unable to reproduce many of the results that the pair of scientists claimed to have achieved in their own laboratory mice, a panel of prominent behavioral research scientists has been assembled to test the verity of these peculiar findings. In the transcript of the trial, the originators of this experiment claim their mouse's song went something like this:

    Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal,
    Send me a kiss by wire,

  • Old News (Score:5, Interesting)

    by heptapod ( 243146 ) <heptapod@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @11:42PM (#13929561) Journal
    David Attenborough, noted naturalist, remarked upon the discovery of a rare night-singing tree mouse found in the Sheba Islands in the south Pacific. The musendrophilus has a very haunting song. Also their webbed paws are highly prized by the natives for the creation of their musical instruments. [museumofhoaxes.com]

    It is unknown if they are related to the rare "tree squeaks" that live in the treetops and squeak every time the wind rustles their home's boughs.

    • Interesting? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Look at the URL. It was an April Fool's joke.
  • 1. Fund some obscure research department
    2. Have them teach mice to sing.
    3. Publish results to world, touting the musical abilities of mice.
    4. Make micro-nano iPods to affix to the mice.
    5. PROFIT!!!

  • I wonder (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by icepick72 ( 834363 )
    Does the sound trail up or down when the mouse trap snaps around their necks?
  • 1. Whistle 2. ? 3. Cheese 4. Sex!
  • You don't think it's "so long, and thanks for all the cheese", do you?

    Rats! The Vogons are getting close!

  • Challange (Score:2, Interesting)

    by burden123 ( 535350 )
    I challange someone to make a music remix out of this!
  • one passage came back: "Developers, developers, developers!" Another translated to "Come on, come on, get up, get up, give it up for meeeee!" It must be noted that the female mice at this point were paying attention but seemed quite uncomfortable and ready to bolt.

  • Great (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pmsyyz ( 23514 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @12:46AM (#13929825) Homepage Journal
    With this news we should be able to program small robots to seek out the singers and kill them. Or draw female mice to a killer robot with a fake male mouse song.
  • OK I'm not sure if it's just that it's high pitched, but my I've never seen my cat react to a sound like he did for this. He was all interested and looking around. Wonder if he understands what it means better than I do?

    Anyone else with pets care to share observations?
    • My 17 lb Tabby did not stir, but we have had a bird until recently, and she sort of got used to that.
      The reduced freq mice and bird "songs" are somewhat similar, probably close enough if the cat has even been a hunter---Mine isn't.

      I would still be curious about the reaction to the original version, if one could effectively reproduce it.

  • And the song? (Score:2, Funny)

    by kabrakan ( 13409 )
    All I could think of when i read this was R. Kelly.
     
    "I want to piss on you.. I really do..."
  • I guess all those dollar store ultrasonic rodent prevention gadgets might actually have some merit.. unless there output translates to "come infest my house" in mice speak... who knew!

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