James Apostolatos 2/28/19
Current Event 17 AP Biology
Citation: Sanders, Laura. “How Singing Mice Belt out Duets.” Science News, 28 Feb. 2019, www.sciencenews.org/article/singing-mice-duets-brain-patterns-human-speech.
In Costa Rica, Alston’s singing mouse (Scotinomys teguina) is known to stand and produce a well-timed high pitch ‘song’ to communicate with other mice. This is perhaps to negotiate its territory with other males or notify another mouse. This article discusses a new study revealing how their brains orchestrate these rapid-fire songs. One brain system directs the patterns of notes that make up songs, while it coordinates duets with another mouse. The series of repeating calls are triggered by the brain. In the wild, these song duets between mice are thought to attract mates and stake out territory. One brain system is thought to control the contents of the songs known as the orofacial motor cortex or OMC. This orchestrates the split-second timing needed for the mouse duets according to expert Mr. Long. One experiment showed that when the team cooled the mice’s OMC, slowing those nerve cells’ activity, songs grew longer, suggesting that the brain region normally controls song timing. When they prohibited OMC growth, the mice had trouble singing. This shows the importance of OMC and brain activity for rat communication and vocal performance.
This is important because it is connected to ecology. It discusses a very different form of animal behavior that can give us insight into rat communication in the wild. This is important because it is connected to vocal communication and the role of the brain in rats. The study suggests that this type of singing rat from Costa Rica could give us a brand new insight into the brain by mentioning the orofacial motor cortex, or OMC. The connection with communication to the brain can benefit the study of our own human behavior.
One strength was its explanation of the ecology aspect and how it cited evidence from a real scientist. They connected it to the brain and the overall importance in society by using an example to back up their claim. The experiment was the mice’s OMC levels being altered. One weakness was its unprofessional tone. Often, the writer would mention something not connected to the topic and I wished it was more scholarly. Also, the paragraph spacing needed work. One way to improve this is to separate the paragraphs into smaller chunks and use a scholarly tone so the reader remains interested.
Ellyn Paris
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
AP Biology
Current Event 5
10/8/19
Sanders, Laura. “How Singing Mice Belt out Duets.” Science News, 28 Feb. 2019, www.sciencenews.org/article/singing-mice-duets-brain-patterns-human-speech.
Apostolatos’ review of the article was very interesting and well written. His first sentence was about the defining feature of Alston’s singing mouse, which allowed the reader to understand what animal is being discussed in the article. When giving the summary of the article, Apostolatos first gave the general purpose of this study, and then provided a specific example of what scientists did to further their knowledge on these mice. This created a very good flow throughout his paragraph. Finally, he made a good connection as to how this specific study is connected to the human race. By explaining this connection, he successfully took the bigger picture of the article, and showed the audience how scientists are furthering their knowledge on the human brain.
One way Apostolatos could have made the review better was by spell checking it. Although there were not many mistakes within his review, having even one grammatical error makes a piece of writing much less professional. He could have also described the importance of the OMC in human beings and its role it plays in our everyday lives further.
Before reading this article, I had never heard of these singing mice or the OMC. I did not know that a species besides bird could “sing”. This review taught me much about an interesting Costa Rican species and the workings of its brain.