Learn about the social neuroscience of music; songbirds’ ultra-precise song control; and how animals can get skin cancer. This is what happens in the brain when people make music together by Kelsey Donk What happens in the brain when people make music together? (2021). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/bu-whi060921.php Greenberg, D. M., Decety, J., & Gordon, I. (2021). The social neuroscience of music: Understanding the social brain through human song. American Psychologist. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000819 Songbirds have ultra-precise control over their singing, controlling frequencies under 1 Hz by Grant Currin Songbirds can control single vocal muscle fibers when singing. (2021). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/uosd-scc053121.php Adam, I., Maxwell, A., Rößler, H., Hansen, E. B., Vellema, M., Brewer, J., & Elemans, C. P. H. (2021). One-to-one innervation of vocal muscles allows precise control of birdsong. Current Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.05.008 Hays, B. (2021, June 4). Songbirds can precisely control single vocal muscle fibers while singing. UPI; UPI. https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2021/06/04/denmark-songbirds-fibers-vocal-control/4951622821325/ Merlin Bird ID - Free, Instant Bird Identification Help and Guide for Thousands of Birds: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ Do animals that spend time in the sun get skin cancer? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Toby in Longmont, Colorado) Grey, H. (2018, June 28). Here’s How Much Damage a Really Bad Sunburn Can Do. Healthline; Healthline Media. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-how-much-damage-a-really-bad-sunburn-can-do van der Weyden, L., Brenn, T., Patton, E. E., Wood, G. A., & Adams, D. J. (2020). Spontaneously occurring melanoma in animals and their relevance to human melanoma. The Journal of Pathology, 252(1), 4–21. https://doi.org/10.1002/path.5505 Bryce, E. (2018, May 27). Do Animals Ever Get Sunburned? Livescience.com; Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/62677-do-animals-get-sunburned.html Gambino, M. (2011, July 8). Ask an Expert: Do Animals Get Sunburned? Smithsonian Magazine; Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ask-an-expert-do-animals-get-sunburned-28218217/ Why Would A Fish Make Its Own Sunscreen? (2015, May 13). NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/05/13/404444731/why-would-a-fish-make-its-own-sunscreen Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Learn about the social neuroscience of music; songbirds’ ultra-precise song control; and how animals can get skin cancer.
This is what happens in the brain when people make music together by Kelsey Donk
Songbirds have ultra-precise control over their singing, controlling frequencies under 1 Hz by Grant Currin
Do animals that spend time in the sun get skin cancer? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Toby in Longmont, Colorado)
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/your-brain-on-music-super-singing-songbirds-animal-sunburns
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about what happens in the brain when people make music together; and the ultra-precise control songbirds have over their singing. We’ll also answer a listener question about whether animals can get skin cancer.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Remember at the start of the pandemic, when people sang songs together from their balconies? Even after videos of this went viral, people kept singing, playing instruments, and making music together as we all got used to stay-at-home orders and pandemic anxiety.
All that pandemic music-making inspired neuroscientists to take a look at what happens in the brain when we make music together. Their findings add more evidence to the idea that music is more than just entertainment. It’s central to human experience, and it helps us connect with others on a deep level.
This might sound like old news, but this study looked at music-making in a different way than others: through the lens of social neuroscience. Social neuroscience is a new field that combines the stuff that happens inside the brain with the larger context of the society and culture around us. While previous studies have looked at what happens in the brain when an individual makes or listens to music, along with how people react when they make music together, not many have looked at what happens in the brain when people make music together.
So in this new article, researchers proposed five key brain functions that help people connect to each other through music.
The first are empathy circuits. Empathy helps us understand other people’s emotions, and musical collaboration can boost empathy.
Next, oxytocin. Oxytocin helps us feel a social connection, and that’s why people sometimes call it the “love hormone.” When we sing together, we produce oxytocin, and that helps us bond with one another.
Dopamine is another important element in making music together. This neurotransmitter is central to the experience of reward and motivation. It’s released when we’re anticipating a musical climax or a familiar chorus, and it produces a feeling of pleasure.
Language structures are also in the mix, since the “call and response” in musical dialogue taps into the brain’s language center.
Finally, there’s cortisol, a stress hormone. When people make or listen to music together, cortisol levels fall, and stress goes down along with it. That’s extra important during a global pandemic,
The main takeaway? All that music-making at the start of the pandemic didn’t happen just because people were bored. Generally speaking, when people turn to music, it’s for more than just fun. Music is a powerful tool and a core feature of human existence. Even when the world feels like it’s falling apart, music brings us together.
Researchers love studying birdsong, and a team in Denmark has just announced a dynamic new discovery. They found out that songbirds have an incredible degree of control over the muscles they use to make music, with some neurons responsible for individual muscle fibers.
Songbirds sing using a special organ called the syrinx. It’s at the base of the trachea, right where the two lungs come together. The syrinx is surrounded by muscles that can twitch really, really quickly, about a hundred times faster than muscles in a human leg. The researchers behind the new study wanted to know just how precisely the neurons in a birdbrain can control the muscles that make birdsong.
They started off by looking at syrinx muscles under a microscope and carefully following a motor neuron to the point where it attached to the bundle of muscle fibers it controls. Then they counted the number of muscle fibers. They combined those observations with data about activity in the brains of singing birds to model how information flows from the brain to the muscles that surround the syrinx.
Most motor neurons in the animal kingdom control quite a few muscle fibers. In the human leg, a motor neuron typically directs the movement of hundreds or even thousands of muscle fibers. In something as precise as the human eye, it’s one motor neuron for every five or ten muscle fibers. But according to the researchers' model, a lot of motor neurons associated with singing in songbirds control just a single muscle fiber. In fact, nearly one in five of the motor neurons behind birdsong control just one muscle fiber.
It was such a surprising find that the researchers had to double-check their conclusion. They experimentally activated single motor neurons and then measured activity in the attached muscle. Sure enough, some motor neurons directly controlled just one muscle fiber.
You might be thinking, one muscle fiber? What difference could that make? That’s what the researchers were asking, too. So they created an experimental setup that let them blow air through a syrinx while controlling the muscles with small motors. It turns out that songbirds’ intricate control over those muscles gives them singing precision of less than 1 hertz. By comparison, there are 415 hertz between neighboring keys on the piano. Perfect pitch, anyone?
That kind of control is important because the quality of a bird’s song can make the difference when it comes to attracting a mate — and passing genes down to the next generation. Ah, the things we do for love.
We got a listener question from Toby in Longmont, Colorado, who asks, “Can any animal on the planet that spends most of the day unprotected under the sun get skin cancer?” Great question, Toby!
The answer is yes, wild animals that spend time in the sun do get skin cancer! The sun causes skin cancer when UV rays damage the genetic material in skin cells. At first, this causes a sunburn, but enough of it over time can lead to skin cancer. So really, any animal that spends time out in the sun without protection can get a sunburn — and eventually, skin cancer. Scientists have seen skin cancer in all sorts of wild animals, including fish, whales, dolphins, turtles, ducks, penguins, goats, rabbits, lions, and hippos.
But wild animals also have an arsenal of tools they can use to avoid sun damage. First, they can take cover in shade or an underground burrow. Some also have built-in protection like hair, fur, feathers, and scales. These coverings act like our clothing does and blocks sunlight from ever touching the skin. The skin pigment melanin helps too — giraffes actually have more melanin in the outer parts of their tongues, which seems to help them avoid getting a sunburn while they’re fishing for leaves high in the trees. But for animals without these adaptations, there are other things they can use. Elephants and rhinos will coat themselves in dust or mud to shield their skin from the sun; pigs do something similar. Hippos actually secrete a red liquid that gives them protection from both UV rays and harmful bacteria. And a whole lot of animals — basically every vertebrate except mammals — naturally produce a UV-blocking compound called gadusol. Though scientists aren’t sure if that’s what these animals use it for, or if its sunscreen qualities are just a lucky side effect.
But if an animal does get sunburned, the same thing happens to them as to us. Their skin gets red, and it sometimes can blister. And just like us, that sunburn can eventually lead to skin cancer. So it’s important for all animals, from sharks to human sunbathers, to protect their skin from sun damage. Thanks for your question Toby! If you have a question, send a voice recording or an email to curiosity at discovery dot com or leave us a voicemail at 312-596-5208.
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, I just wanted to let you know that somehow, it’s already the end of July. And that means now is your LAST CHANCE to vote for Curiosity Daily in the 2021 Podcast Awards! So if you could do that before August 1, that would be awesome.
ASHLEY: Yeah! It only takes a second: just visit podcast-awards-dot-com, register your email address, select us in the drop-down menus for the categories of Education and Science & Medicine, and click or tap “save nominations” at the bottom. Voting in all other categories is optional!
CODY: And remember that when you register to vote, you can also check a box to volunteer to be a judge to vote on finalists next month — which is pretty fun. So feel free! You can find a link to all this information in today’s show notes, or just visit podcast-awards-dot-com — and I promise this is the last time we’ll ask for your help. Which is VERY MUCH appreciated. And now, here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll hear next week on Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Next week, you’ll learn about the first-ever scientific tool to cure hiccups;
A new quantum microscope and the impossibly tiny things it can see;
Why kids don’t get sarcasm until the age of 7;
The Deep Web;
And more! Okay, so now, let’s recap what we learned today.
[ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: Today’s writers were Kelsey Donk and Grant Currin.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also a writer on today’s episode.
ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: Have a great weekend! Spend some time making music with your friends IN THE SUN — just don’t forget the sunscreen. Then, join us again Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!