On April 11, Teresa Michelsen wrote about birdsong recognition and Dr
Konishi's article "Listening With Two Ears" in the April 1993 _Scientific
American_ .

I went back to read the article, and found it to be a fascinating account
of the physiology of hearing in Barn Owls. Dr Konishi spent over 15
years studying the behavior of the brain of this owl. Beyond the brain's
known use of differences in timing and intensity of sound to pinpoint
prey, the article delves into how "the brain manages to detect variances
in timing and intensity and how it combines the resulting information
into a unified spatial perception." After determining HOW the owls'
brains work, he speculated on better ways to design computer chips using
the prinicples of biology rather than principles drawn from electronics.

One begins to muse whether our scientific literature and its jargon are
sufficient in disseminating information. I, for one, am likely to
read and to comprehend a well-written and well-illustrated (no, no comic
books, thank you) article in - say - Sci. Am. If the paper is in a
journal of neuroscience, physiology, the _Auk_, etc., I am surely less
likely to enjoy reading it and thus less likely to read it without a
specific NEED to. Maybe we should encourage good science to be published
in "softer" articles as well as in the journals?

Thanks, Teresa, for pointing this article out to us Tweeters...

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, WA
anderjda at dfw.wa.gov