Ian Sample, the science correspondent for Guardian.co.uk, reports that Metallica's music had the unexpected effect of calming monkeys when it was played to them as part of a recent study.

In the study, which was published today in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, 14 cotton-top tamarins were played 30-second blasts of music while the researchers noted any changes in their behavior. The animals were played Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" and a soft piano piece from "The Fragile" by rock band Nine Inch Nails, followed by Metallica's "Of Wolf and Man" and an excerpt from "The Grudge" by rock band Tool.

They then heard the specially composed monkey music.The only human music that elicited any response was Metallica, the study found.

I would like to contest these studies. I have been to several Metalica shows and listened to Metallica at various bars, and I contend the songs do NOT soothe monkeys. In fact, they only rial them up.

I have seen one barbaric ape go from picking lice out of another silverback gorilla's matted back hair to full on ape on ape beating. There was so much caterwalling and fur flying during this one particular beating, I felt like I descended into Zinj from the Congo movie.

This wasn't the only time I had seen Metallica fans go from soothed pacification to irritated fisticuffs and the addition of alcohol only seems to bring the beserkers to full rage mode quicker.

In fact, the addition of alcohol on these test monkeys would have been a better study. Now if only I could find a couple of spider monkeys to run my own test case. If you have the ability to run this test, we only want a quick mention because our name in a Medical Journal would be hilarious.