WHEN a certain part of a quail’s brain is transplanted into a chick, the
chick thinks a quail’s call is the sound of its mother.
Last year, a team led by Evan Balaban of the University of San Diego
transplanted part of a quail’s brain into chicks during the embryonic stage.
When the chicks grew up they sang quail songs
(New Scientist, Science, 15 March 1997, p 16).
Now the team has transplanted another part of a quail’s brain into a chick
that makes it move towards a loudspeaker emitting quail calls—as though
the chick is responding to its mother. “There’s something I can transplant that
reliably shifts the behaviour between these two species,” says Balaban.
