ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Songbirds' learning hub in brain offers insight into motor control
• Pollution teams with thunderclouds to warm atmosphere
• Common antibiotic carries heart risk, study suggests
• Brain injury to soldiers can arise from exposure to a single explosion
• Training the blind to 'see' using new device to 'listen' to visual informatoin

Songbirds' learning hub in brain offers insight into motor control Posted: 20 May 2012 10:35 AM PDT To learn its signature melody, the male songbird uses a trial-and-error process to mimic the song of its father, singing the tune over and over again, hundreds of times a day, making subtle changes in the pitch of the notes. To accomplish this feat, the Bengalese finch's brain must receive and process large quantities of information about its performance and use that data to precisely control the complex vocal actions that allow it to modify the pitch and pattern of its song. Now, scientists have shown that a key brain structure acts as a learning hub, receiving information from other regions of the brain and figuring out how to use that information to improve its song, even when it's not directly controlling the action.

Pollution teams with thunderclouds to warm atmosphere Posted: 19 May 2012 05:28 PM PDT New simulation study shows that atmosphere warms when pollution intensifies storms. How much the warming effect of these clouds offsets the cooling that other clouds provide is not yet clear.

Common antibiotic carries heart risk, study suggests Posted: 16 May 2012 02:42 PM PDT Researchers have discovered a rare, but important risk posed by the antibiotic azithromycin, commonly called a "Z-pack." The study found a 2.5-fold higher risk of death from cardiovascular death in the first five days of taking azithromycin when compared with another common antibiotic or no antibiotics at all.

Brain injury to soldiers can arise from exposure to a single explosion Posted: 16 May 2012 12:24 PM PDT Scientists have found new evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in brain tissue from blast-exposed military service personnel. Laboratory experiments demonstrated that exposure to a single blast equivalent to a typical improvised explosive device results in CTE and long-term brain impairments that accompany the disease. They also found that the blast wind, not the shock wave, leads to traumatic brain injury and long-term consequences.

Training the blind to 'see' using new device to 'listen' to visual informatoin Posted: 16 May 2012 06:31 AM PDT A method developed for training blind persons to "see" through the use of a sensory substitution device (SSD) has enabled those using the system to actually "read" an eye chart with letter sizes smaller than those used in determining the international standard for blindness. The device converts images from a miniature camera into "soundscapes," using a predictable algorithm, allowing the user to listen to and then interpret the visual information coming from the camera.

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