SSS 2009-04-30

（单词翻译）

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute.

Forget “Polly wanna cracker¹.” Polly wants to boogie. Or so say scientists in a pair of papers in the April 30th issue of the journal Current Biology. They found that some birds, especially parrots, can bob their heads, tap their feet and sway their bodies to a musical beat.

It’s long been thought that dancing is a uniquely human hobby. Chimps² don’t move to the groove³. And when was the last time you saw Fido or Fluffy⁴ shake their furry⁵ booties? But Snowball the cockatoo is another story. That bird’s got rhythm. Researchers found that Snowball can adjust the tempo⁶ of his dance moves to coincide with the speed of the music. In this study, the tune⁷ was “Everybody” by the Backstreet Boys, one of the cockatoo’s faves.

But Snowball’s not the only bird who likes to boogie. In a separate study, researchers searched YouTube for videos of dancing animals. Of the 1,000 they turned up, only 15 critters actually moved in sync with the beat. Fourteen of those were parrots, one was an elephant. Pachyderms, parrots and people are all vocal⁸ mimics⁹. So the neural¹⁰ circuits for vocal learning may also enable moving to the beat.

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin.