Thursday, April 01, 2004
For the Birds
I may be falling for an April Fools joke, but here goes: I really don't understand this concept at all. Why on earth are people trying to use pigeons to carry data? I read the explanation of Google's PigeonRank some time ago, and thought it was a strange metaphor or something. Does Google actually have pigeons? I'm so confused!!!!
In less questionable news, scientists have found that birds share a key language gene with humans. Anyone who's taken a neurolinguistics, developmental or cognitive psychology/neuroscience class remembers learning about how songbirds learn and practice their songs. Now, there's a gene tied to that acquisition. The key expression of FoxP2, the gene in question, is in Basal Ganglia. Which is a very interesting place for it to be...GB is associated with learning and habit formation, but not (to my knowledge) language. The web gets more complex (as usual!).
In less questionable news, scientists have found that birds share a key language gene with humans. Anyone who's taken a neurolinguistics, developmental or cognitive psychology/neuroscience class remembers learning about how songbirds learn and practice their songs. Now, there's a gene tied to that acquisition. The key expression of FoxP2, the gene in question, is in Basal Ganglia. Which is a very interesting place for it to be...GB is associated with learning and habit formation, but not (to my knowledge) language. The web gets more complex (as usual!).
