Music is universal in all human cultures, but why? What gives us the ability to hear sound as music? Are we the only musical species–or was Darwin right when he said every animal with a backbone should be able to perceive, if not enjoy music? Professor Henkjan Honing is on a mission to find out.

This episode was written and produced by Ray Pang and Meredith Johnson. Sound design, mixing, and scoring by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle, additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.

This episode uses sounds from Freesound.org, including:

Neon Dreams: A Retro-Futuristic Synthwave Track - Instrument 02 by Robbnix - License: Attribution 4.0

Music Box, Happy Birthday.wav - by InspectorJ - License: Attribution 4.0