5/29/2009 PERMALINK
Mice engineered with human language gene aren't talking yet, but do squeak differently
Researchers have genetically engineered a strain of mice to carry the human version of a gene called FOXP2, which has previously been linked to speech.

In a region of the brain called the basal ganglia, known in people to be involved in language, the humanized mice grew nerve cells that had a more complex structure. Baby mice utter ultrasonic whistles when removed from their mothers. The humanized baby mice, when isolated, made whistles that had a slightly lower pitch, among other differences, says [Wolfgang Enard, a scientists at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the work.