Mind, Body, Music!

Even after watching the movie Legally Blonde for the umpteenth time I still laugh when Elle Woods explains how her client, a queen of workout videos is innocent: "Exercise releases endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands, they just don't!"

This got me to thinking if exercise makes people feel happy, but exercising in silence is pretty awful- at least in my world,  then listening to music has to make working out better (somehow)! And as it just so happens various other people must have had the same thought.

Costas Karageorghis and David-Lee Priest from Brunel University studied the affects music has on exercising after learning that the 2007 New York Marathon had banned participants from listening to music during the race. Karageorghis and Priest determined that "...music can influence preparation and competitive performances: dissociation, arousal regulation, synchronization, acquisition of motor skills, and attainment of flow." 

Charles Emery from Ohio State University did similar research and determined "Listening to music may influence cognitive function through different pathways in the brain. The combination of music and exercise may stimulate and increase cognitive arousal while helping to organize cognitive output." Emery has also done testing to see the effects different types of music!

So while you consider the impacts of music on the mind and body check out this sweet video! It is a pretty good argument for the "acquisition of motor" skills by music!

The Shut Your Face Gun

There are many interesting gadgets and fun toys out there. Once in a while one grabs your imagination and does not let go. For me it was this Speech Jammer.

This invention uses the principle of Delayed Auditory Feedback(DAF) to produce the desired effect of confusion and silence. By adding a small delay to the targets voice the Jammer confuses the person's ability to hear themselves and disrupts the brains ability to put together sentences.

When I saw this video, I got excited and said to my friend , "We should make one!" Then we did and made a crappy video.

It did not work as well as we hoped but did does confuses the crap out of people. In the process of making and experimenting with our gun we learned that it only works on people speaking in their native tongue.  Also DAF was originally used to help people with stutters correct their speech as seen here.

 So it turns out that a discovery to help people to stop stuttering causes others to stop speaking. One man's cure is another's poison. I hope you found the Speech Jammer as interesting as I did. If you make one your self, let me know by commenting below. Also if you know of any other cool sound gizmos, post those below as well. Till next time.
~Connor

Healing with Sound

Wolverine from the X-Men: Renowned for his "Healing Factor"

Wolverine is the first person I think about when the words "accelerated healing" are used to described anything. Growing up as a kid he was always a favorite because he was near invincible with his healing factor, he could recover from almost any injury. This unique power is something that most patients wish they could have even if they don't know who Wolverine is. Accelerated healing is something that medical researchers have studied and experimented with to aid in the recovery process of patients. One such study they have done and implemented is the use of ultrasound to help heal non-unions (i.e. a  fracture that lacks potential to heal without further intervention) and fresh fractures.

This has all the sciency information

But is full of jargon and kinda boring

The video above tells the science behind the technology and how it all works. Basically what it does is it sends low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (i.e. Sound frequency above the upper limit of the range of human hearing) that stimulates blood flow. In the first few weeks the stimulation helps form new blood vessels, later during the second half of its usage it promotes soft callous growth. It is a quite simple treatment that is painless and applied for only 20 minutes a day for a couple of months or until satisfactory healing is achieved.

Sound Can Hurt

If there is one thing that you all on the internet know, it's that some sounds can be pretty awful all on their own:

However, the army has recently been taking the same idea into account for a new(ish) type of nonlethal weapon. A long range acoustic device (LRAD) is used to direct infrasonic waves to a specific area and is capable of causing hearing damage from hundreds of feet away with no damage to the person standing behind the device operating it. An LRAD was even used back in 2005 to deter pirates from attacking a cruise ship, the Seaborn Spirit (if you want to learn more about that particular incident, that link is to the BBC story).

Unlike the speakers in your car, which use one giant speaker to move back and forth and produce sound, an LRAD works by moving thousands of teeny tiny little cells (like mini speakers) at a time. This winds up being much more effective as all of the small waves stack together to make a huge amplitude sound wave.

If you'd like to learn some more about how an LRAD works, this how stuff works article has some great visuals and explanations: How LRAD Works

What is music?

We all hear sounds as we walk down the street, the sound of the cars driving by, the street sweepers, maybe even a baby crying. No one ever thinks of sweeping the street or taking out the trash as music, right? Well what about STOMP, a musical group that uses items such as trash cans and brooms to generate sounds and rhythm? Is this music? (STOMP: BROOMS video) Mark Applebaum also asks this question. His motivation behind what he does it the fact that he gets bored with the music now. So he stretches the meaning of music as he invents his own instruments (Mark Applebaum video). The idea the music is not just sounds but an art and a science will always push innovation and creativity to the modern world.