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Spring is the time of year when birds are singing throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Far to the north, beneath the ice, another lesser-known concert season in the natural world is just coming to an end. A University of Washington study has published the largest set of recordings for bowhead whales, to discover that these marine mammals have a surprisingly diverse, constantly shifting vocal repertoire.

Researchers have found the first major evidence that Neanderthals, rather than modern humans, created the world's oldest known cave paintings - suggesting they may have had an artistic sense similar to our own. An international study involving Durham University shows that paintings in three caves in Spain were created more than 64,000 years ago - 20,000 years before modern humans arrived in Europe.

ANN ARBOR-With the frequency that some people play their favorite song, it's a good thing vinyl records aren't used often because they might wear out. University of Michigan researchers have found that people enjoy replaying a favorite song many times even after the novelty and surprise are gone. In a new study, participants reported listening to their favorite song hundreds of times.

UofG's @P14Murray revealed on @BBCTheOneShow that up to 50 #RobertBurns songs were not really by the Bard! #BurnsNight2018 #UofGRabbie #CheerstoRabbie https://t.co/ZuzzWI7unB pic.twitter.com/0uB6BqTNy8 — University of Glasgow (@UofGlasgow) January 25, 2018 ‌Some 50 airs in an 18th century landmark publication credited with saving Scotland's folk song tradition were not by Robert Burns, according to new University of Glasgow research.

Research news The almost complete silence of the motors used in electric cars may pose a hazard to inattentive pedestrians. As a result, starting in summer 2019 all new electric and hybrid vehicles will have to be equipped with an acoustic warning system. Psychoacousticians at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are developing the corresponding sounds.

Thursday, December 21, 2017 Children who eat fish at least once a week sleep better and have IQ scores that are 4 points higher, on average, than those who consume fish less frequently or not at all, according to new findings from the University of Pennsylvania published today in Scientific Reports , a Nature journal.

'Macroscale multimodal chemical imaging' reveals details about second century Egyptian painting Matthew Chin Scientists from UCLA and the National Gallery of Art have used a combination of three advanced imaging techniques to produce a highly detailed analysis of a second century Egyptian painting. They are the first to use the specific combination — which they termed "macroscale multimodal chemical imaging" — to examine an ancient work of art.

Do songbirds and humans have common biological hardwiring that shapes how they produce and perceive sounds? Scientists who study birdsong have been intrigued for some time by the possibility that human speech and music may be rooted in biological processes shared across a variety of animals. Now, research by McGill University biologists provides new evidence to support this idea.

Picture yourself with a friend in a crowded restaurant. The din of other diners, the clattering of dishes, the muffled notes of background music, the voice of your friend, not to mention your own - all compete for your brain's attention. For many people, the brain can automatically distinguish the noises, identifying the sources and recognizing what they "say” and mean thanks to, among other features of sound, pitch.

How did Finding Nemo affect clownfish? Was Jaws bad for sharks' Did the remake of the Jungle Book help pangolins? Researchers from Lancaster University and the University of Exeter say conservation scientists could work with filmmakers to harness the "Hollywood effect" to boost conservation. Scientific advisors and product placement are already commonplace in films, and the researchers say similar methods could be used to raise awareness of endangered species and other environmental issues.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. A new study from MIT reveals that babies as young as 15 months can learn to follow this advice. The researchers found that babies who watched an adult struggle at two different tasks before succeeding tried harder at their own difficult task, compared to babies who saw an adult succeed effortlessly.

Women rate photographs of male faces as more attractive and are more likely to date the men pictured when they have previously heard music. Moreover, highly arousing music led to the largest effect on sexual attraction. A team of psychologists led by Manuela Marin (University of Innsbruck) and Helmut Leder (University of Vienna) explains the significance of this finding in relation to the origins of music in their latest publication in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

They may live for the limelight and the call of their muse, but musicians may also be prone to eating disorders, according to new research. A study of active musicians - including amateurs, students, professionals, and retired musicians - has found that they may have a high prevalence of food-related disorders, which could be explained by a combination of personality traits and the demands of the job.

Using hundreds of faces of actors from movies, psychologists from the University of Bristol have shown how facial expressions can get in the way of our ability to tell unfamiliar faces apart. People's faces change from moment to moment. Even over the course of a conversation with someone, changes are seen in their expressions and in the angle of their head.

Researchers at the Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (CNRS/UPMC) have shown that recently-made violins have better sound projection 1 than those built by the famous violinmaker Antonio Stradivarius. This study, published in the journal PNAS on May 8th 2017, also shows that, despite the prestige of these old Italian violins, listeners prefer the sound made by recent instruments and cannot distinguish the two.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Nancy Karrels relishes solving the mysteries behind the paintings and objects we see in art museums. Karrels - a doctoral student in art history at the University of Illinois who also has two law degrees - investigates the backgrounds and histories of objects to trace their path from creator through each owner.

People on the autistic spectrum can take in more sounds at any given moment compared to non-autistic people, according to new research from UCL. Researchers from the Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE) at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE) used two behavioural experiments to examine whether an increased capacity for processing sounds in autism could underlie both difficulties and enhanced auditory abilities that are found in the condition.

The Arts, Science & Culture Initiative project titled 'net(work)' is a music and neurobiology collaboration, in which a musical composition interprets and represents images of neurons sending electrical signals.

University of Washington researchers have shown that Google's new tool that uses machine learning to automatically analyze and label video content can be deceived by inserting a photograph periodically and at a very low rate into videos. After they inserted an image of a car into a video about animals, for instance, the system returned results suggesting the video was about an Audi.

A re-examination of the iconic John Constable work, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows , has found that the original 1831 exhibited version of the painting did not have a rainbow - and that it was added later to correspond with the time of his best friend's death over a year later. The new research explains how a reassessment of the solar geometry of the painting, and the painter's considerable understanding of contemporary rainbow theory, suggest that that the rainbow was added in at a later date as an homage to John Fisher, who died on the afternoon of 25 August 1832.