BUFFALO, N.Y. – Humpback and bowhead whales are the only mammals other than humans thought to progressively change the songs they sing through a process of cultural learning. But maybe the humpbacks ...

All known human languages display a surprising pattern: the most frequent word in a language is twice as frequent as the ...

As scientists have now shown, songbirds are minimalists when it comes to learning a new song. The birds' learning strategy resembles the methods used by computer scientists for document comparison.

However, one of the most rewarding ways to identify birds is to listen to them and learn to recognize their songs. As an ornithologist and educator, I often introduce students to the intricacies of ...