Recent studies of vocal mechanics in songbirds have identified a functional role for the beak in sound production. The vocal tract (trachea and beak) filters harmonic overtones from sounds produced by the syrinx, and birds can fine-tune vocal tract resonance properties through changes in beak gape. In this study, we examine patterns of beak gape during song production in seven species of Darwin...

Cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying differences in beak morphology likely involve interactions among multiple embryonic populations. We exchanged neural crest cells destined to participate in beak morphogenesis between two anatomically distinct species. Quail neural crest cells produced quail beaks in duck hosts and duck neural crest produced duck bills in quail hosts. These transforma...

Beak trimming is necessary in commercial broiler breeders to prevent or decrease trauma as they mature. Two common beak-trimming methods were evaluated by early performance comparison with nontrimmed chicks (NBT). The robotic electrocautery device (ECD) trims and cauterizes the beak tip. The robotic infrared beak-trimming device (IBT) applies an infrared light beam to destroy the live basal tis...

Living with a visible physical disability—specifically dwarfism—brings situational, psychosocial, and cultural challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic, its restrictions, amplifies these dwarfism-related complexities, exposing the politics of visibility exclusion, as well spatial injustices. This autoethnographic paper deliberates heightened disabling encounters in their various contextual layers—phys...

Early infantile epileptic encephalopathy or EIEE (Ohtahara syndrome OS) is a kind of intractable seizure that begins in neonatal age with sudden onset of tonic spasms in series or single suppression-burst S-B in EEG.I Imaging shows anatomic defects such as migration disorders and generalized atrophy" with essentially normal metabolic tests. The seizures often change to West's syndrome (WS) ...

The movements of the head and beak of songbirds may play a functional role in vocal production by influencing the acoustic properties of songs. We investigated this possibility by synchronously measuring the acoustic frequency and amplitude and the kinematics (beak gape and head angle) of singing behavior in the white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) and the swamp sparrow (Melospiza ge...

As do many songbirds, zebra finches sing their learned songs while performing a courtship display that includes movements of the body, head and beak. The coordination of these display components was assessed by analyzing video recordings of courting males. All birds changed beak aperture frequently within a single song, and each individual's pattern of beak movements was consistent from song to...

among the major stressors in poultry that cause suffering and death of chickens. Beak trimming, removal of 1/3 to 1/2 of the beak, is a routine husbandry procedure practiced in the poultry industry, including laying hens, broiler breeders, turkey and ducks, to prevent those undesirable behaviors. However, beak trimming is a painful procedure. There is a considerable body of morphological, neuro...

Kindler syndrome (KS) is a rare, autosomal recessive genodermatosis characterized by skin blistering and photosensitivity in infancy, progressive poikiloderma, and diffuse cutaneous atrophy. It affects the skin, mucous membranes, and oral cavity and is caused by mutations in the KIND1 gene on 20p12.3. The first case of KS associated with periodontitis was reported in 1996, and have been infrequ...