Brynn Marie Evans

This is an awesome story of a neuroscientist who discovered Snowball, the Internet famous cockatoo whose favorite song is “Everybody” (Backstreet Boys). Scientist Patel theorized that “only certain types of brains can achieve musical beat perception and synchronization–those that are capable of complex vocal learning.” Their experiment involved changing the tempo of Snowball’s favorite song and seeing if he kept the beat appropriately (in essence, he did!). Their conclusion: “the dancing ability of a nonhuman animal may shed light on how our brains evolved their capacity to respond to music.”