Musical Genes

There’s a popular idea going around that if someone has any musical talent, s/he were magically born with that ability. A more accurate way to put it would be that most of us are born with the ability to make and/or enjoy music. [1]  We are the only species on earth the puts energy into making and listening to a series of tones and rhythms with no directly tangible meaning. Even songbirds tunes have a specified purpose and meaning, such as attracting mates or staking out territory. The bird’s beautiful trills are largely instinctual, programmed into their nervous system since birth. We humans can write original music and improvise. But why? Why are humans obsessed with music? Why do we even bother to spend time making and listening to music at all?

Sheet music.
 Creative commons image

Perhaps humans evolved into a music-loving group because we are social creatures and music is way to communicate and bond with one another. Maybe musical ability is the product of sexual selection, being musically gifted can be seen as attractive. It’s possible that music doesn’t give us any evolutionary advantages at all - we merely like the sound, repetition, and comfort of music.

DNA Helix.
Creative commons image

Another theory is that early language was combined with music, but gradually the two separated. The Neanderthals are suspected to have communicated through tonal sounds similar to singing, but gradually phonetic language became dominate as it allowed early hominins to be more articulate. Some languages today, like Mandarin Chinese are still highly tonal.

People who grew up speaking tonal languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, are more likely to have perfect pitch than those whose first language was non-tonal. Some studies show there is a gene for perfect pitch, but this claim is disputed. Perfect pitch is more of a combination of genetic advantage and the environment. Actually every person (with the exception of those with amusia, or hearing loss) can hear pitches correctly, it’s just the naming and matching of these pitches that confuses some of us. It’s odd that we can hear pitches but not name or reproduce them, that’s almost like being able to see colors, but not being able to name or match them. Really, instead of wondering why some people have perfect pitch and others don’t we should be wondering why all of us don’t have perfect pitch.

Sometimes specific genes of musicians can influence their ability. For example, having flexible or large hands can help a pianist or violinist play more complex passages. Paganini, a famous violinist in the early 1800s, may partially owe his success to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disease that prevents collagen formation. Collagen strengthens ligaments, with this strength comes stiffness.

Paganini drawing  by Ingres
Creative commons image.

Without collagen Paganini could stretch his hands way more than the average person, allowing him to accomplish incredible feats on the violin. Ehlers-Danlos might have been a blessing to Paganini in some ways, but the disease may have also contributed to Paganini’s early death. Genetic problems can also hinder musicians. Schumann suffered from focal dystonia, a muscle loss disorder that prevented him from playing some pieces.

These genetic advantages/disadvantages influence physical ability to play music, but not musicality itself. While the idea that specific genes program our musicality is likely just a rumor, the human race as a whole may have a “musical gene.” Otherwise why would we be the only species that makes music? What genes these are and how they work is unknown.

Even if there is no genetic basis for musicality, scientists have found ways to make our genes musical by coding songs into bacterial DNA. A Chopin nocturne was coded into DNA, and strangely the sequence resembled that of the gene for RNA polymerase, which is needed for transcribing DNA. Genetic sequences have also been coded into songs by assigning each base a note (A, G, C, and E).

Sources.

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[1] People with disorders such as amusia, or hearing loss may not enjoy music.

Museum Collections

 When I look at the New York City landscape around me I notice how much of it is covered with cement. It wasn’t always this way. Even now bustling Manhattan used to be rural. It makes me wonder, how has urbanization over the past century changed our environment?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could go back fifty or a hundred years and scientifically compare their environment to ours now?

It ends up we can do just that.

Well, not exactly. Time travel has not been invented (yet!), but scientists do have a way of preserving pieces of the past for future study. Museums and scientific institutions around the world like the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Natural History Museum, London, have been collecting specimens of fish, birds, invertebrates, reptiles and amphibians, and mammals for many years. These collections document biodiversity over time and across the globe.

Having these collections is a great asset to science. Let’s say a scientist wants to know how urbanization is effecting different species. The scientist could look at specimens of many different species collected from an area that was once rural but is now urbanized and examine any changes in the specimens and populations they were collected from. Maybe this scientist decides to focus how urbanization has effected one particular species. Then s/he could look a specimens of this species from different areas, and compare populations of this species over both space and time.

Once we know how urbanization has effected a species, we can use this data to predict how further development will continue to effect it in the future. Knowing what happened in the past can help people realize what needs to change if we want to maintain a healthy environment. We can use this information to develop good environmental policies and policies for conservation.

It’s pretty cool that museum collections can be used to study environmental health, but that’s not the only way collections are used. Here are a few more ways we can use species collections:

o   To study evolution. Maybe during urbanization, one population of a particular species became isolated. Using specimens collected from the original population and the isolated one, researchers can see if the populations change enough to be considered different species or different subspecies.

o   To study genetics. DNA can be obtained from tissue samples and from the skins of specimens, as long as they weren’t preserved in formalin. Today we can obtain DNA from specimens collected when people barely even knew what DNA was! Who knows what information old collections will provide scientists in the future.

o   To study disease, contaminates and parasites and how they effect a species.

o   To identify unknown species using DNA or morphology.

o   To study the diet of a species and how it changes.

The interesting thing about collections is that they are always being used in new ways. Early collectors probably had no idea the specimens they collected would be used to study the effects of urbanization. Not too long ago no one thought we would be using DNA from specimens for science, but now that is common practice. Future scientists will probably use specimens we collect today in ways on one could dream of now.

Thanks to Neil Duncan and Nuala Caomhanach at the American Museum of Natural History for helping me research for this post.

Sources.