Watch and Hear: Crystal Clear

Crystals are ordered, complexly symmetrical, and even dynamic in their growth and dissolution. It’s no wonder we’re attracted to these chemical lattices as an art form. Linden Gledhill’s new montage of microscopic crystals and food dyes takes that to its aesthetic apex. In this great video, he uses them as a colorful backdrop to a track off Jon Hopkins’ (no relation to the medical school) new album Immunity.

See what amazingness can occur when a scientist (Gledhill is a trained biochemist) and an artist join forces? Let’s do more of that.

Check out links to Gledhill’s other microscopic explorations as well as a cool behind the scenes look at which chemical reactions made the colors you’re enjoying at The Creator’s Project (also on Tumblr).

(via The Creators Project)

Source: Vice Magazine

I definitely spoke to soon on that previous answer. Bird songs are absolutely a form of culture. I actually don’t know what I was thinking, other than maybe answering a question on my phone might be a good idea? Anyway, bird songs and other not-so-melodic calls are certainly culture, because at its core culture is simply learned and communicated behaviors. Take zebra finches, for instance … hallo, zebra finch! Zebra finch males court their mates with melodic calls. Usually they learn those calls from their fathers and uncles. But if they are brought up in isolation, they will tweak those calls and come up with their own personal version (much to the ire of the females, because they know what they like). But as those “creative” males have male offspring, their children and grandchildren will gradually shift the song back to the “official version”.  Is the song behavior coded in their genes somewhere? Do they shift it back because the females pressure them to through mating success (if ya know what I’m saying)? Who knows? But it’s certainly learned and transmitted culture, as well as imprinted culture. Some people just call that “social learning”, but I think that’s splitting hairs to make us feel special as humans. You can read more about these zebra finch songs at Wired if you’re so inclined. But the real question under all of this is are bird songs music? I argue no. There’s an intent to the creation of music that birds just don’t have. A premeditation that says “I have an idea and I want to communicate it with these sounds.” Birds don’t (seem to) do that premeditation part.  But whales on the other hand … (I’m going to continue pondering this idea … hopefully you will do the same. Social behaviors and bird songs be weird, man. Maybe my opinion will evolve over time.)
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I definitely spoke to soon on that previous answer. Bird songs are absolutely a form of culture. I actually don’t know what I was thinking, other than maybe answering a question on my phone might be a good idea?

Anyway, bird songs and other not-so-melodic calls are certainly culture, because at its core culture is simply learned and communicated behaviors. Take zebra finches, for instance … hallo, zebra finch!

Zebra finch males court their mates with melodic calls. Usually they learn those calls from their fathers and uncles. But if they are brought up in isolation, they will tweak those calls and come up with their own personal version (much to the ire of the females, because they know what they like). But as those “creative” males have male offspring, their children and grandchildren will gradually shift the song back to the “official version”. 

Is the song behavior coded in their genes somewhere? Do they shift it back because the females pressure them to through mating success (if ya know what I’m saying)? Who knows? But it’s certainly learned and transmitted culture, as well as imprinted culture. Some people just call that “social learning”, but I think that’s splitting hairs to make us feel special as humans. You can read more about these zebra finch songs at Wired if you’re so inclined.

But the real question under all of this is are bird songs music? I argue no. There’s an intent to the creation of music that birds just don’t have. A premeditation that says “I have an idea and I want to communicate it with these sounds.” Birds don’t (seem to) do that premeditation part. 

But whales on the other hand …

(I’m going to continue pondering this idea … hopefully you will do the same. Social behaviors and bird songs be weird, man. Maybe my opinion will evolve over time.)

Why does music make us feel happy or sad? Or angry or romantic? How can simple sound waves cause so much emotion?

First things first, this is the best t-shirt I’ve worn in any episode.

I went from my comfy chair to the streets of Austin to investigate whether it might be written into neural evolution. Modern neuroscience says our brains may be wired to pick certain emotions out of music because they remind us of how people move!

Humans are the only species we know that creates and communicate using music, but it’s still unclear how or why we do that, brain-wise. Is it just a lucky side effect of evolution, like Steven Pinker says? Or is it a deeper part of our evolutionary history, as people like Mark Changizi and Daniel Levitin argue?

Some brand new evolutionary psychology research says that we may read emotion in music because it relates to how we sense emotion in people’s movements. We’ll take a trip from Austin to Dartmouth to Cambodia to hear why music makes us feel so many feels. The connections between movement and music go far beyond dance moves!

Mike over at Idea Channel has a different opinion, that our emotional reactions to music are purely learned and cultural. Head on over and check it out. Do you agree?

For more reading on this awesome topic, check out these references.

Why does music make us feel so many emotions?

I’ve got a new episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart going live on YouTube in a few minutes, all about some of the science behind why music is capable of making us feel so many feels.

image

I’m also excited because Mike from PBS Idea Channel did a video about the same thing and you can watch both and really get your think on. Whatever the reason, the fact is that music is just vibrations of sound in various patterns and arrangements … so what gives?

What makes it different from a jackhammer? Are our brains wired to sense emotion in music? Or do we just associate emotions based on our cultural influences? Is music just a side effect of our evolution? Or is music/emotion deeply rooted in our neural development as a species, even contributing to our species social success?

The video will be up in no time. But first … What do you think?

What? I’m not crying, That’s just space dust in my eye …

ISS Astronaut/All-Around Badass Dude Chris Hadfield has already taught us that crying in space isn’t a good idea, but this lonely astronaut music video is equal parts beautiful and touching. This space-traveler’s quest for happiness grabs me right at the heart of my emotional galaxy, man …

The song is “Tambourine” by Dave Armstrong.

(via io9)

Source: space.io9.com

Folding Space-Time … WIth Sound

Vi Hart channels her inner Möbius … and her inner J.S. Bach … and her inner Time Lord … to turn a wooden bowl and a music box player into an interpreter of space-time reflections using music as dimensions.

This sonic mind-expander should be washed down with a look at the master of palindromic, reflected space-time compositions: J.S. Bach and his gloriously twisty-turny Crab Canon (srsly it’ll blow ya mind)

Ever wonder just why some music makes you feel so good? Virginia Hughes reports on some super-interesting new neuroscience research by Valorie Salimpoor at her National Geographic blog: Only Human There’s quite a bit of nitty-gritty brain science at play here, but here’s the highlights: The Big Questions: The major mystery in the biology of music is “why?” How do mere vibrations in the air bring on such deep emotional responses? Did this have any influence on our evolution, or is it just a side effect of the myriad of tweaks and evolutionary forces that made us human? What They Found: When test subjects listened to songs they had never heard before and asked whether they wanted to buy them, they engaged brain pathways involved in reward, pleasure, memory, prediction and judgment. When we hear new music, we appear to call upon “templates” for what we like in our memory. Then regions involved in prediction and judgment decide how much it fits our expectations, and searches for a “Goldilocks zone” of novelty and familiarity. If it fits, then we get a rush of pleasure in the brain’s reward pathway. What Questions Remain: Why do people with similar exposures have such different tastes? How similar and different can things be before they become pleasurable/not pleasurable?  New music is a series of memory, prediction, judgment and pleasure. It’s a whole-brain activity, and it’s a uniquely and wonderfully human experience. I highly recommend checking out Ginny’s full article. This is fascinating stuff. There will be an episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart all about music and evolution in the near future. Stay tuned!
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Ever wonder just why some music makes you feel so good? Virginia Hughes reports on some super-interesting new neuroscience research by Valorie Salimpoor at her National Geographic blog: Only Human

There’s quite a bit of nitty-gritty brain science at play here, but here’s the highlights:

The Big Questions: The major mystery in the biology of music is “why?” How do mere vibrations in the air bring on such deep emotional responses? Did this have any influence on our evolution, or is it just a side effect of the myriad of tweaks and evolutionary forces that made us human?

What They Found: When test subjects listened to songs they had never heard before and asked whether they wanted to buy them, they engaged brain pathways involved in reward, pleasure, memory, prediction and judgment. When we hear new music, we appear to call upon “templates” for what we like in our memory. Then regions involved in prediction and judgment decide how much it fits our expectations, and searches for a “Goldilocks zone” of novelty and familiarity. If it fits, then we get a rush of pleasure in the brain’s reward pathway.

What Questions Remain: Why do people with similar exposures have such different tastes? How similar and different can things be before they become pleasurable/not pleasurable? 

New music is a series of memory, prediction, judgment and pleasure. It’s a whole-brain activity, and it’s a uniquely and wonderfully human experience.

I highly recommend checking out Ginny’s full article. This is fascinating stuff. There will be an episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart all about music and evolution in the near future. Stay tuned!

Source: National Geographic

When people listen to a piece of music they have never heard before, activity in one brain region can reliably and consistently predict whether they will like or buy it, this is the nucleus accumbens which is involved in forming expectations that may be rewarding. What makes music so emotionally powerful is the creation of expectations. Activity in the nucleus accumbens is an indicator that expectations were met or surpassed, and in our study we found that the more activity we see in this brain area while people are listening to music, the more money they are willing to spend.
The second important finding is that the nucleus accumbens doesn’t work alone, but interacts with the auditory cortex, an area of the brain that stores information about the sounds and music we have been exposed to. The more a given piece was rewarding, the greater the cross-talk between these regions. Similar interactions were also seen between the nucleus accumbens and other brain areas, involved in high-level sequencing, complex pattern recognition and areas involved in assigning emotional and reward value to stimuli. In other words, the brain assigns value to music through the interaction of ancient dopaminergic reward circuitry, involved in reinforcing behaviours that are absolutely necessary for our survival such as eating and sex, with some of the most evolved regions of the brain, involved in advanced cognitive processes that are unique to humans.

“This is interesting because music consists of a series of sounds that when considered alone have no inherent value, but when arranged together through patterns over time can act as a reward, says Dr. Robert Zatorre, researcher at The Neuro and co-director of the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research. “The integrated activity of brain circuits involved in pattern recognition, prediction, and emotion allow us to experience music as an aesthetic or intellectual reward.”

“The brain activity in each participant was the same when they were listening to music that they ended up purchasing, although the pieces they chose to buy were all different,” adds Dr. Salimpoor. “These results help us to see why people like different music — each person has their own uniquely shaped auditory cortex, which is formed based on all the sounds and music heard throughout our lives. Also, the sound templates we store are likely to have previous emotional associations.”

What happens in the brain to make music rewarding? (via myserendipities)

Joe’s take: This is interesting, because understanding the mechanisms of how our brains turn music into enjoyment is a pretty awesome question to look at. But it doesn’t answer the larger question: Why do we find those patterns enjoyable (or not) in the first place?? 

Music is just patterned sound. What is it that makes it cross the line to emotion? Is it dependent on our cultural experience? Or is it just THERE, man?!

Also, I may or may not be working on an episode about this for my YouTube channel so it’s kind of on my mind.

(via myserendipities)

Meet Ronan, a 3-year-old sea lion that loves disco and the Backstreet Boys, and is the first non-human mammal able to keep the beat to music. 

Previously, birds like parrots (like this parrot, and this parrot, and this parrot, and these parrots) were the prime head-bobbers of nature. And it’s not tied to vocals, like the way that parrots mimic human speech (since sea lions don’t do that). It seems like rhythm is a natural part of biology.

So next time you move, feel the beat in your evolution, man.

(via The Two-Way : NPR)

Source: NPR

If you’re ever concerned that the internet is going to run out of awesome, this TCA (Krebs) Cycle rap to the tune of Thrift Shop by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis should remind you that there’s plenty more to be found.

I’m gonna pop some caaaarbs, only got a lil’ glucose in my pathwaaaay

(by 1MaginAZN)

Source: youtube.com