Wild Music in the News

(Phys.org) —Four freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania have taken Apple's personal assistant Siri to behave as a graduate-level executive assistant which, when asked, is capable of adjusting the temperature of the phone owner's Nest thermostat or playing a song of choice on the Spotify playlist, or turning on the lights, or unlocking a car. Their efforts have not been ignored by numerous tech-watching sites. As important, a premier university hackathon PenApps, sponsored by numerous company heavyweights, gave the quartet third prize. Their entry was GoogolPlex. "We hacked Siri in iOS 7 to interface with Spotify and other third-party apps," they said. "Imagine being able to control your Nest thermostat and unlock your car through Siri. With GoogolPlex, these are now possible."

Major record labels are suing Internet radio giant Pandora for copyright infringement for using songs recorded before 1972 without paying license fees.

UWE computer music expert Dr Tom Mitchell is part of the team working to make musician Imogen Heap's pioneering Mi.Mu gestural gloves more widely available. The team has recently started a Kickstarter campaign to develop the gloves.

(University of Southern California) Stem cells in bone marrow need to produce hydrogen sulfide in order to properly multiply and form bone tissue, according to a new study from the Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology at the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC. Principal investigator Songtao Shi and his team demonstrated that mice's osteoporosis-like condition could be rescued by administering small molecules that release hydrogen sulfide inside the body. The results indicate that a similar treatment may have potential to help human patients.

Rhythmic drum patterns with a balance of rhythmic predictability and complexity may influence our desire to dance and enjoy the music. Many people find themselves unable to resist moving their bodies to the thumping beat of hip-hop, electronic, or funk music, but may feel less desire to dance when listening to a highly syncopated type of music, like free jazz.

Everything we do -- all of our movements, thoughts and feelings -- are the result of neurons talking with one another, and recent studies have suggested that some of the conversations might not be all that private. Brain cells known as astrocytes may be listening in on, or even participating in, some of those discussions. But a new mouse study suggests that astrocytes might only be tuning in part of the time -- specifically, when the neurons get really excited about something.

LONDON (AP) -- The children of musician Paul Weller won a privacy lawsuit Wednesday over paparazzi pictures published on a newspaper website....

(NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke) Everything we do -- all of our movements, thoughts and feelings -- are the result of neurons talking with one another, and recent studies have suggested that some of the conversations might not be all that private. Brain cells known as astrocytes may be listening in on, or even participating in, some of those discussions. But a new mouse study suggests that astrocytes might only be tuning in part of the time -- specifically, when the neurons get really excited about something.

Opponents say the project would destroy scenic vistas and ruin the sense of isolation at Manzanar National Historic Site.

INDEPENDENCE, Calif. — One by one, a parade of Owens Valley residents rose at a public hearing Tuesday to assail the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's plan to meet its renewable energy goals by covering 2 square miles of high desert with 1 million solar panels.

Scientists report that ring-tailed lemurs respond more strongly to the scents and sounds of female lemurs when the scent they smell and the voice they hear belong to the same female -- even when she's nowhere in sight. Linking a particular female's call with her unique aroma gives the lemurs a way to figure out if she is nearby, since the scents tend to linger.

In the first known study of its kind, researchers have shown that the language we learn as children affects brain structure, as does hearing status. 'What we've learned to date about differences in brain anatomy in hearing and deaf populations hasn't taken into account the diverse language experiences among people who are deaf,' says one of the authors.

At sports venues designed to maximize crowd atmosphere, beware of hearing loss.

Male cod may 'sing' to females during mating, suggests a new study investigating the sounds cod and pollack produce during the spawning season.

The major US music labels joined the legal battle against file-sharing website Megaupload, with a copyright infringement lawsuit against the site shut down by US authorities.

A new paper from the Swansea University, College of Engineering team working on the BLOODHOUND SSC (Supersonic car) project has been published on the aerodynamic characteristics of travelling at 1,000mph. Simulations have looked at how the car will cope with the supersonic rolling ground, rotating wheels and resulting shock waves in close proximity to the test surface at the record attempt site in Hakskeen Pan, South Africa. Where, in 2015, it will make high speed test runs of up to 800mph, with the full 1,000mph attempt scheduled for 2016.

"You wanna go to Mars, you wanna go big? Then you gotta test big here," says mechanical engineer Michael Meacham, and testing big is exactly what he and other engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have done to develop a new supersonic parachute for future Mars landings.

Nerve cells flexibly adapt to acoustic signals, research has shown. Depending on the input signal, neurons generate action potentials either near or far away from the cell body. Nerve cells ensure that the various kinds of input signals are optimally processed -- and thus allow us to perceive both small and large acoustic arrival time differences well, and thereby localize sounds in space.

What are the aerodynamic characteristics of traveling at 1,000 mph? Simulations have looked at how the car will cope with the supersonic rolling ground, rotating wheels and resulting shock waves in close proximity to the test surface at the record attempt site in Hakskeen Pan, South Africa. Where, in 2015, it will make high speed test runs of up to 800mph, with the full 1,000mph attempt scheduled for 2016.

A supersonic parachute was tested by NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project. A rocket-fired sled and pulley system pulled a one kilometer rope with the parachute attached. - Curiosity's 7 Minutes of Terror: http://goo.gl/BAb8qa

Flexible plastics that turn mechanical vibrations into electrical energy could spur the development of self-powered sensors and devices. The shrinking dimensions and decreased power consumption of modern electronic gadgets have created opportunities for energy harvesting processes that tap into free, green energy from the environment. Vibration harvesters, for example, produce small amounts of electricity from everyday mechanical disturbances such as wind currents, traffic noise or footsteps.