Whales have songs, and so do birds, of course. But does music lift the spirits of a swallow? Do humpbacks hum to make themselves mellow?
Although bird songs and many other animal vocalizations have been the subject of intense scientific study, the effect of music on the moods of creatures other than humans has remained mysterious.
But a provocative new study, spawned by an unusual partnership between a cellist with the National Symphony Orchestra and a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has provided some of the first evidence that humans are not the only species whose heartstrings are pulled by music.