Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control-region (CR) sequences were analysed to address three questions regarding the evolution of geographical variation in song sparrows. (i) Are mtDNA sequences more informative about phylogenetic relationships and population history than previously published restriction fragment (RFLP) data? (ii) Are song sparrow CR sequences evolving in a selectively neutral manner...

Male white-crowned sparrows have song "dialects," acquired in about the first 100 days of life by learning from older males. In the laboratory an alien white-crowned sparrow dialect can be taught. Once the song is established further acoustical experience does not change the pattern. White-crowned sparrows do not copy recorded songs of other sparrow species presented under similar conditions.

Instrumentalists rely on physical gestures such as plunking, bowing, hitting, and blowing air into their instruments in order to produce sound; among tremendous number of human gestures, the body movements employed by musical performers are limited. This compositional project began with the idea of extending the relationship between human gestures and sound by electronic means. From that germin...

Drosophila and Musca both belong to the group of higher dipteran flies and show morphologically a very similar early development. However, these two species are evolutionary separated by at least 100 million years. This presents the opportunity for a comparative analysis of segmentation gene expression across a large evolutionary distance in a very similar embryonic background. We have analysed...

Axis formation is a key step in development, but studies indicate that genes involved in insect axis formation are relatively fast evolving. Orthodenticle genes have conserved roles, often with hunchback, in maternal anterior patterning in several insect species. We show that two orthodenticle genes, otd1 and otd2, and hunchback act as maternal anterior patterning genes in the honeybee (Apis me...

Embryonic development requires generating cell types at the right place (spatial patterning) and the right time (temporal patterning). Drosophila neuroblasts undergo stem cell-like divisions to generate an ordered sequence of neuronal progeny, making them an attractive system to study temporal patterning. Embryonic neuroblasts sequentially express Hunchback, Krüppel, Pdm1/Pdm2 (Pdm), and Castor...

The C2H2 zinc finger is the most prevalent protein motif in the mammalian proteome. Two C2H2 fingers in Ikaros are dedicated to homotypic interactions between family members. We show here that these fingers comprise a bona fide dimerization domain. Dimerization is highly selective, however, as homologous domains from the TRPS-1 and Drosophila Hunchback proteins support homodimerization, but not...