<< Previous       Next >>

Singing Apes On Helium Helium: Best birthday party gas ever. Also useful in conducting monkey business - or more accurately - monkey research, apparently. The gas famous for making humans sound like chipmunks works by shifting the resonance frequencies of the vocal tract upwards. But helium is also useful for studying animal vocal mechanisms for its ability to increase sound velocity and resonance frequencies. Japanese researchers recently used a helium enriched environment to study the vocals of gibbons (small asian apes) and found that the same complex vocal techniques used by professional soprano singers is also used by the gibbon. "This is the first evidence that gibbons always sing using soprano techniques, a difficult vocalisation ability for humans which is only mastered by professional opera singers," said lead researcher Dr Takeshi Nishimura. "This gives us a new appreciation of the evolution of speech in gibbons while revealing that the physiological foundation in human speech is not so unique."

<< Previous       Next >>