A little bird told her: scientist wins $100,000 prize for decoding birdsong

Julie Elie worked out how zebra finches announce who they are, what they are doing and use individual signatures

A scientist who decoded the vocalisations that a bird uses to communicate has won a $100,000 prize for making progress towards a world in which humans can talk to the animals - without being met with a blank response.

Dr Julie Elie at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2026 Coller-Dolittle prize for two-way interspecies communication after working out the 11 core calls in the zebra finch vocabulary and their meanings.