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Ice Virus, Do You Like Music?, Chicken Tails, Beauty Under The Sea, Ladies Sing Too, Where Sea Turtles Swim, Getting Brainy: Sound, Math, And Bodies, Chemical Life Extension, Smarty Pants Plants, And Much More…
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This Week in Science…
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It Came From the Ice
While only infecting ameobas, this is the largest virus found to date, and the oldest; it was revived from 32,000 year old permafrost. The question arises whether there are more viruses to be found that would be a threat to humanity.
Blair’s Animal Corner
What happens when you give paleontologists chickens?
This…
The most beautiful animal you’ve never seen
Bird song isn’t just for the gentlemen
It looks like Darwin got bird song backwards. It’s ok Charles, you still have your beaks!
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How Brains See the World
When Blind People See with Sound
The same area of the brain, the extra-striate body area, becomes activated by the human form in both sighted individuals and those who learned to see with sound.
Math is Art
Beauty is in the mind of the beholder, and when it comes to math equations it is in the mind of the mathematician.
Getting Out of Body
A college woman came forward after learning about out-of-body experiences in a class, revealing that she has been able to have these experiences since pre-school. fMRI concluded that visual areas of the brain are turned off and other motor areas are activated.
Plants are smart – even smarter than we thought
Plants may be using cost-benefit analysis to make decisions – wait… WHAT?!
SRT1720 For A Long Life
A chemical mimetic for calorie restriction called SRT1720 extended the lifespan of mice on a standard diet by 9% in addition to extending the lifespan of mice fed a high-fat diet.
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I'm the host of this little science show. 
I just wanted to weigh in on the “Do You Like Music” discussion. Unfortunately I can’t remember where I read this, I’m thinking it was when I was in a college course on Music and Science that I took in the mid 70’s, but the hypothesis was that the thing that attracts us to music is more that the brain playing a game of trying to predict what is going to happen next. When you predict correctly you do get the reward of being right (the dopamine blast Dr Kiki mentioned). However when the brain does not predict correctly the brain is also rewarded by the surprise of something unexpected.
The balance between these two factors can explain a lot about different tastes in music that we see in the population at large. Some folks prefer to have things safe and predictable (pop, dance music, new age etc) while others prefer a preponderance of novelty (avant garde 20th century classical, third stream jazz, electronic music etc). Of course any balance between these extremes is also possible and the balance preferred by an individual may vary depending on mood and situation.
This hypothesis also explains why we may dislike certain styles of music. For example a listener who’s brain prefers to be correct in most of it’s predictions is going to loose interest because it is not able to correctly predict what’s going to happen often enough to want to play the game (think a video game where you can’t even figure out how to get out of the first level). The more “adventurous” listener’s brain will also loose interest in playing the game when it discovers it can all too often predict what’s going to happen next (think of a video game that is so easy that you can zip right through all the levels without any effort).
This also explains how our tastes in music can change throughout our lives. Simply put, for some people at least, the more you listen to music the better your brain gets at predicting what will happen. In order to get the same level of “novelty’ you have to try something new (unfamiliar).
I know of no real research that supports this hypothesis, but as a musician I have given it a lot of thought over the years, and I would say that a lot of general brain research of late seems to support the ideas of the effects of “familiar” versus “novelty” in our brains that is put forth here.