IT may not seem like elephants and Barry White would have much in common. But it appears that both use bass singing to set the mood.Researchers have found that elephants use an ultrasound rumble - often too low for humans to hear - to keep the herd together and for males to find mates. It allows the animals to communicate over distances of up to six miles.The low-pitched elephant calls, occupying a frequency range below 20 Hertz, may seem to have little in common with human singing. But researchers have confirmed that both are produced in exactly the same way.Experts had wondered whether, like a cat’s purr, elephant infrasound was generated by muscular ‘twitching’ movements of the vocal cords.  This mechanism can produce ‘arbitrarily low’ frequencies, scientists said.Instead, it turns out the elephant sounds are made purely by air being blown through the larynx, or voice box, as in the case of a human singer.                                  –DM

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