Songbirds 'sing from hymn sheet'

The BBC reports that songbirds "learn to sing from a hymn sheet in their head", according to a new study. Swiss researchers have studied Zebra Finches and believe the birds use different regions of the brain for this: one for an internal recording of how the birds ought to be singing and another area which seems to enable the birds to identify mistakes in their songs. The research could also shed light on how humans learn to speak.