L. Mahadevan used air blown through a stretched rubber tube to recreate complex birdsongs. The study published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, found the complexity of birdsongs may be due to a simple controllable instability in the structure of the syrinx, a specialized organ used to create songs. News coverage in the Harvard Gazette and SEAS provides audio and video of the recreated songs.

Image, "The Voice" courtesy of Andy Morffew on Flickr