patrick.net

It’s part of the Evolved Mouse Project, a Japanese research project that’s taking a brute force approach to genetic engineering—they’re modifying mice, letting them breed, and just sort of noting down the results.

Isn't that how the zombie apocalypse always starts?

While checking a new litter of mice one morning, they discovered one of the baby mice “singing like a bird.” Excited, they focused on that mouse and now have over 100 mice that can sing, and they noticed something else interesting—when regular mice grew up around singing mice, they began to use different sounds and tones, sort of like a dialect spreading through a human population. Here’s a video of one of the mice.

http://www.yLu37VvCozw

And a few generations later...

http://www.cxjaQV0ob2E