A Song 165 Million Years in the Making

[PPI Brian]

Night-time in the Jurassic forest was punctuated by the unmistakable sound of chirping bush crickets, according to scientists who reconstructed the song of a cricket that chirped 165 million years ago.

A remarkably complete fossil of the prehistoric insect enabled the team to see the structures in its wings that rubbed together to make the sound.

Here are a couple of links to the story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16878292

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112469795/researchers-recreate-fossil-cricket-love-song/

http://www.youtube.com/v/pT9PlgoXXhk

[Adriano]

When I see articles like this one, It always makes me wonder of the magnitude of things that once were, and of things that will ever be. Both are enormously humbling compared to our feeble knowledge and understanding of the universe. What drew me to science was always not what science knows but rather what it doesn't.

[PPI Karl]

When I see articles like this one, It always makes me wonder of the magnitude of things that once were, and of things that will ever be. Both are enormously humbling compared to our feeble knowledge and understanding of the universe. What drew me to science was always not what science knows but rather what it doesn't.

"Amen" to that.  And that's why one can't rightly accuse science, in general, of being another kind of dogma.   When it's done right, it's an elegantly self-revising and evolving system (to paraphrase Carl Sagan).

[PPI Brian]

Well said, Adriano. I agree -- science isn't ashamed to admit what it doesn't know, with the possible exception of paranormal research.  

I find it fascinating that scientists were able to determine the pitch of the insect's chirp by studying the structure of its preserved wings. How incredible!

[PPI Debra]

Well said, Adriano. I agree -- science isn't ashamed to admit what it doesn't know, with the possible exception of paranormal research.  

I find it fascinating that scientists were able to determine the pitch of the insect's chirp by studying the structure of its preserved wings. How incredible!

I think it's amazing, too.

[Adriano]

Absolutely! The beauty of science is not the answers that if provides to our questions, but rather the ability to embrace every question to the answers it provides . That is the very core of the scientific method. Heck, perhaps a few years from now they might find out the the pitch they tried to recreate is slightly "off-key".. who knows, but what they have presented so far is simply remarkable...