In our quest to find what makes humans unique, we often compare ourselves with our closest relatives: the great apes. But when it comes to understanding the quintessential human capacity for language, ...

This story is part of our summer Book Club conversation about Jennifer Ackerman’s book ‘The Genius of Birds.’ Want to participate? Sign up for our newsletter or send us your thoughts on the SciFri ...

In our quest to find what makes humans unique, we often compare ourselves with our closest relatives: the great apes. But when it comes to understanding the quintessentially human capacity for ...

In our quest to find what makes humans unique, we often compare ourselves with our closest relatives: the great apes. But when it comes to understanding the quintessentially human capacity for ...

Birds separated by vast geographic distances and millions of years of evolution share a remarkably similar learned vocal ...

Waking up to the dawn chorus of birds—one of the natural world's greatest symphonies—is a joy like no other. It is not ...

Zipf’s law of abbreviation explains how commonly spoken words tend to be shorter. The idea is so intuitive, birds appear to use it, too.

June 12 -- — Babies learn to speak the same way that some birds learn how to sing. Infants don't learn to speak just by imitating the sounds of older humans in their midst, according to new research.

Even if some birds share rudimentary aspects of human language, we still know very little about what’s actually going on in their minds. Most animal communication research has focused on describing ...