Can listening to music make you more productive at work?

Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock Anna Fiveash, Western Sydney University

Listening to music can enhance our lives in all kinds of ways – many of us use it during exercise, to regulate our mood, or in the workplace.

But can listening to background music while you work really make you more productive?

It’s a controversial topic. Some people swear by it, others find it painfully distracting. The research agrees there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question.

The best way to use music in the workplace depends on several factors, including your personality traits, what you’re doing, and what kind of music you’re listening to.

Here’s how to find out what works best for you.

Who you are

Your personality has a key influence on whether background music can boost productivity or be distracting in the workplace, which relates to your unique optimal level of arousal.

Arousal in this context relates to mental alertness, and the readiness of the brain to process new information. Background music can increase it.

Research suggests that being at an optimal level of arousal facilitates a state of “flow”, enhancing performance and productivity.

Introverts already have a high baseline level of internal arousal.

Adding background music might push them over their optimal level, likely reducing productivity.

Extroverts, on the other hand, have lower baseline levels of internal arousal, so need more external stimulation to perform at their optimal level.

This is why introverts may perform worse than extroverts with background music, especially when the music is highly arousing.

What you’re doing

Research has shown the nature of the task you’re doing can also have an important effect.

Because of connections between music and language in the brain, trying to read and write at the same time as listening to complex music – especially music with lyrics – can be particularly difficult.

However, if you’re doing a simple or repetitive task such as data entry or a manual task, having music on in the background can help with performance – particularly upbeat and complex music.

These findings could be related to music’s effects on motivation and maintaining attention, as well as activating reward networks in the brain.

The type of music itself

One important and often overlooked influence is what kind of music you choose to listen to.

Research has shown that fast and loud music can be more detrimental to complex tasks, such as reading comprehension, than soft and slow music.

Other research found that listening to calming music can have benefits for memory, while aggressive and unpleasant music can have the opposite effect.

However, these effects also depend on your personality, your familiarity with the music, and your musical preferences, so the type of music that works best will be different for everyone.

Music can be very rewarding and can benefit attention, mood and motivation.

Choosing music that is meaningful, rewarding and makes you feel good will likely help boost your performance, especially when performing simple tasks.

What about complex tasks?

It largely seems that the more complex or demanding the task is, the more distracting background music can be.

One way to harness the motivational and mood-boosting effects of music to help with your workplace productivity is to play music before doing your work.

Using music to boost your mood and enhance attention before starting a work task could help you be more productive in that task.

Playing music before a demanding task has been shown to boost language abilities in particular.

So if you’re about to do a cognitively demanding task involving reading and writing, and you feel that music might distract you if played at the same time, try listening to it just before doing the task.

Find what works for you

Music can be both helpful and detrimental for workplace productivity – the best advice is to experiment with different tasks and different types of music, to find out what works best for you.

Try to experiment with your favourite music first, while doing a simple task.

Does the music help you engage with the task? Or do you get distracted and start to become more absorbed in the music? Listening to music without lyrics and with a strong beat might help you focus on the task at hand.

If you find music is distracting to your work, try scheduling in some music breaks throughout the day. Listening to music during breaks could boost your mood and increase your motivation, thereby enhancing productivity.

Moving along with music is suggested to increase reward processing, especially in social situations.

Dancing has the added bonus of getting you out of your chair and moving along in time, so bonus points if you are able to make it a dance break!

Anna Fiveash, ARC DECRA Fellow (Researcher), Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→December 03, 2024

Children Do Much Better in Math When Music is Added to the Lesson: New Study

Photos by Crissy Jarvis (left) and Ben Mullins

A new study explored the causal role that music engagement has on student achievement in mathematics—and they found a significant benefit. Researchers believe that music can make math more enjoyable, keep students engaged, and help ease their fear or anxiety about topics like fractions. The addition of music may even motivate kids to appreciate math and want to learn more. A typical technique for integrating music into math lessons for young children involves clapping to songs with different rhythms learning numbers, and equating fractions to musical notes. The new meta-analysis published in the journal Educational Studies analyzed 55 studies from around the world, involving almost 78,000 students, from kindergarten to university age. Three types of musical interventions were included: typical music lessons in which children sing, listen to, and learn about composing music; learning how to play instruments alone or as part of a band; and music-math integrated interventions, where music was integrated into math lessons. Students took math tests before and after taking part in the intervention, and the change in their scores was compared with those who didn’t take part in any intervention. The use of music—whether in separate lessons or as part of math classes—caused a greater improvement in math over time. Combining both in the same lessons had the most significant effect, with around 73 percent of students who had integrated lessons doing significantly better than children who didn’t have any type of musical intervention. Also, 69 percent of students who learned how to play instruments and 58 percent of students who had normal music lessons improved more than pupils with no musical intervention. The results also revealed that music helps more with learning arithmetic than other types of math and has a bigger impact on younger pupils and those learning basic mathematical concepts. Math and music have much in common, such as the use of symbols and symmetry. Both subjects also require abstract thought and quantitative reasoning. Arithmetic may lend itself particularly well to being taught through music because core concepts, such as fractions and ratios, are also fundamental to music. Musical notes of different lengths can be represented as fractions and added together to create several bars of music. Integrated lessons may be especially effective because they allow pupils to build connections between the math and music and provide extra opportunities to explore, interpret and understand math. “Encouraging mathematics and music teachers to plan lessons together could help ease students’ anxiety about mathematics, while also boosting achievement,” said Dr. Ayça Akın, from the department of software engineering at Antalya Belek University, Turkey. However, she said there were limitations to the study. The relatively small number of studies done meant it wasn’t possible to look at the effect of variables such as gender, socio-economic status, and duration of musical instruction upon the results. Children Do Much Better in Math When Music is Added to the Lesson: New Study

Read More........→April 16, 2024

“Mozart effect”, or can music make you smarter?

Much has been written on the “Mozart effect” - the theory that classical music can stimulate the listener's brain and make them cleverer. Further studies however have refuted the finding and have allegedly proved that the only real benefit to be gained from listening to music is pleasure. It now seems that this enjoyment could be of particular importance where health is concerned.
The “Mozart effect” has long been used as a marketing ploy to sell educational toys or child development materials such as CDs and DVDs. The basic idea was that children who listened to Mozart's music received a "brain boost" to improve their IQ. However, this theory is little more than a medical fairytale. According to Dr. Jessica Grahn, a cognitive scientist at Western University in London, Ontario: “The Mozart effect is a media-driven myth. One study in 1992 showed that undergraduate students who listened to Mozart before a test did better than students who sat in silence or listened to a relaxation tape.” Despite its appeal, the effect has never been confirmed by further studies. As Jessica Grahn said in an interview with the ‘Voice of Russia’: “Later studies showed that this improvement probably had nothing to do with Mozart at all, but instead happens anytime we do something that boosts mood and arousal.” In fact a beneficial effect might indeed be obtained from listening to Mozart; but other kinds of music have been shown to work just as well. What matters is the listener's taste. Dr. Glenn Schellenberg, a psychologist from the University of Toronto, said in an interview with the ‘Voice of Russia’ that: “It doesn’t matter if it's Mozart or Schubert. It is just that music makes you feel good. You can get lots of different effects like that with different kinds of stimulus, which make the listeners feel better.” A study on young children has shown, for example, the "Blur effect" similar to what Mozart was thought to achieve. The effect of music is not related to a specific musical genre. Dr. Glenn continued: “We’ve observed that with 9-11 year old children, pop music works better and on 5 year old kids, children's music works better. It actually depends on the listeners; on which music is going to make somebody feel good. The effects can be noticed with every kind of music, but not if the listener hates it!” Enjoyment is the key; examining the brains of people who were listening to music, scientists have discovered that, while the main effect is pleasure, movement is also involved. Dr. Grahn underlined that: “Several studies have shown that 'reward' areas of the brain, areas that respond to pleasurable things like food or sex, also respond when listening to pleasurable music, particularly if it is music that can give you chills”. Music makes you feel good, but it also makes you move, as Grahn added: “I have also found that when people listen to music, areas of the brain that are responsible for controlling movement are active. This suggests music engages our movement systems, even if we're staying perfectly still.”  Even so, music impacts ordinary listeners and musicians differently. As Jessica Grahn observed: “Many responses are similar across listeners and players. However, players sometimes show more responses in movement areas, perhaps because they are imagining playing along.” Moreover, several studies have proved that playing music regularly can improve IQ by a few points. Although listening to music doesn’t actually boost intelligence, it does make you feel good and in that way influences every aspect of life. Dr. Glenn Schellenberg observed that the effect of music on feelings should not be underestimated: “If you talk about a ‘mood effect’, you’re discounting the power that music has on well-being and health in general.” Music can have a crucial impact on health. “If people undergo an operation, if they’re listening to their favourite CD, then they need less medication. There are lots of examples of effects of music on health, and on well-being more generally. Music makes people feel good and how you feel really has a huge impact on every aspect of life,” Schellenberg stressed. The use of music as a complementary therapy is developing. Music is being utilised in hospitals and clinics around the world. More and more charities organise concerts in hospitals. Members of the British NGO“Music in Hospitals” play for patients all over the UK. Music can often minimise pain and increase a patient's well-being. For example, when people undergo surgery, the use of music as a part of their treatment eases anaesthesia, and helps to speed up the healing process.  Although music has no real impact on intelligence, it does seem to have an important role to play as a therapeutic tool which will probably boost your health, but probably not your IQ! Eva Bertrand. Source: Article

Read More........→December 23, 2013

Birdsong study pecks theory that music is uniquely human

Sometimes he sounds like music to her ears. Other times, not so much. 

By Carol Clark, A bird listening to birdsong may experience some of the same emotions as a human listening to music, suggests a new study on white-throated sparrows, published in Frontiers of Evolutionary Neuroscience. “We found that the same neural reward system is activated in female birds in the breeding state that are listening to male birdsong, and in people listening to music that they like,” says Sarah Earp, who led the research as an undergraduate at Emory University. For male birds listening to another male’s song, it was a different story: They had an amygdala response that looks similar to that of people when they hear discordant, unpleasant music. The study, co-authored by Emory neuroscientist Donna Maney, is the first to compare neural responses of listeners in the long-standing debate over whether birdsong is music. “Scientists since the time of Darwin have wondered whether birdsong and music may serve similar purposes, or have the same evolutionary precursors,” Earp notes. “But most attempts to compare the two have focused on the qualities of the sound themselves, such as melody and rhythm.” Earp’s curiosity was sparked while an honors student at Emory, majoring in both neuroscience and music. She took “The Musical Brain” course developed by Paul Lennard, director of Emory’s Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology program, which brought in guest lecturers from the fields of neuroscience and music. “During one class, the guest speaker was a composer and he said that he thought that birdsong is like music, but Dr. Lennard thought it was not,” Earp recalls. “It turned into this huge debate, and each of them seemed to define music differently. I thought it was interesting that you could take one question and have two conflicting answers that are both right, in a way, depending on your perspective and how you approach the question.” Perhaps your brain would enjoy some music while reading this. Here's a sample of Earp's favorite: "Firebird." As a senior last year, Earp received a grant from the Scholars Program for Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Research (SPINR), and a position in the lab of Maney, who uses songbirds as a model to study the neural basis of complex learned behavior. When Earp proposed using the lab’s data to investigate the birdsong-music debate, Maney thought it was a great idea. “Birdsong is a signal,” Maney says. “And the definition of a signal is that it elicits a response in the receiver. Previous studies hadn’t approached the question from that angle, and it’s an important one.” Earp reviewed studies that mapped human neural responses to music through brain imaging. She also analyzed data from the Maney lab on white-throated sparrows. The lab maps brain responses in the birds by measuring Egr-1, part of a major biochemical pathway activated in cells that are responding to a stimulus. The study used Egr-1 as a marker to map and quantify neural responses in the mesolimbic reward system in male and female white-throated sparrows listening to a male bird’s song. Some of the listening birds had been treated with hormones, to push them into the breeding state, while the control

Justin Bieber, watch your back: A male white-throated sparrow belts out a tune.

group had low levels of estradiol and testosterone. During the non-breeding season, both sexes of sparrows use song to establish and maintain dominance in relationships. During the breeding season, however, a male singing to a female is almost certainly courting her, while a male singing to another male is challenging an interloper. For the females in the breeding state every region of the mesolimbic reward pathway that has been reported to respond to music in humans, and that has a clear avian counterpart, responded to the male birdsong. Females in the non-breeding state, however, did not show a heightened response. And the testosterone-treated males listening to another male sing showed an amygdala response, which may correlate to the amygdala response typical of humans listening to the kind of music used in the scary scenes of horror movies. “The neural response to birdsong appears to depend on social context, which can be the case with humans as well,” Earp says. “Both birdsong and music elicit responses not only in brain regions associated directly with reward, but also in interconnected regions that are thought to regulate emotion. That suggests that they both may activate evolutionarily ancient mechanisms that are necessary for reproduction and survival.” A major limitation of the study, Earp adds, is that many of the regions that respond to music in humans are cortical, and they do not have clear counterparts in birds. “Perhaps techniques will someday be developed to image neural responses in baleen whales, whose songs are both musical and learned, and whose brain anatomy is more easily compared with humans,” she says. Earp, who played the viola in the Emory orchestra and graduated last May, is now a medical student at the Cleveland Clinic. So what music makes her brain light up? “Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ suite,” Earp says., Source: eScienceCommons

Read More........→February 03, 2013

Doing the math for how songbirds learn to sing

A baby house finch and its father. Just like humans, baby birds learn to vocalize by listening to adults.

By Carol Clark, Scientists studying how songbirds stay on key  have developed  a  statistical  explanation
for why some things are harder for the brain to learn than others. “We’ve built the first mathematical model that  uses a bird’s previous sensorimotor experience to predict its ability to learn,” says Emory biologist Samuel Sober. “We hope it will help us understand the math of learning in other species, including humans.” Sober conducted the research with physiologist Michael Brainard of the University of California, San Francisco. Their results, showing that adult birds correct small errors in their songs more rapidly and robustly than large errors, were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Sober’s lab uses Bengalese finches as a model for researching the mechanisms of how the brain learns to correct vocal mistakes. Just like humans, baby birds learn to vocalize by listening to adults. Days after hatching, Bengalese finches start imitating the sounds of adults. “At first, their song is

A Bengalese finch outfitted with headphones. Research on how the birds learn to sing may lead to better human therapies for vocal rehabilitation.

extremely variable and disorganized,” Sober Young birds, and young humans, make a lot of big mistakes as they learn to vocalize. As birds and humans get older, the variability of mistakes shrinks. One theory contends that adult brains tend to screen out big mistakes and pay more attention to smaller ones. “To correct any mistake, the brain has to rely on the senses,” Sober explains. “The problem is, the senses are unreliable. If there is noise in the environment, for example, the brain may think it misheard and ignore the sensory experience.” The link between variability and learning may explain why youngsters tend to learn faster and why adults are more resistant to change. “Whether you are an opera singer or a bird, there is always variability in your sounds,” Sober says. “When the brain receives an error in pitch, it

.
Click to watch video of how the headphones are made.

seems to use this very simple and elegant strategy of evaluating the probability of whether the error was just extraneous ‘noise,’ a problem reading the signal, or an actual mistake in the vocalization.”The researchers wanted to quantify the relationship between the size of a vocal error, and the probability of the brain making a sensorimotor correction. The experiments were conducted on adult Bengalese finches outfitted with light-weight, miniature headphones. As a bird sang into a microphone, the researchers used sound-processing equipment to trick the bird into thinking it was making vocal mistakes, by changing the bird’s pitch and altering the way the bird heard itself, in real-time. “When we made small pitch shifts, the birds learned really well and corrected their errors rapidly,” Sober says. “As we made the pitch shifts bigger, the birds learned less well, until at a certain pitch, they stopped learning.” The researchers used the data to develop a statistical model for the size of a vocal error and whether a bird learns, including the cut-off point for learning from sensorimotor mistakes. They are now developing additional experiments to test and refine the model. “We hope that our mathematical framework for how songbirds learn to sing could help in the development of human behavioral therapies for vocal rehabilitation, as well as increase our general understanding of how the brain learns,” Sober says. The research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Deafness and Communications Disorders, the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke and the National Institute of Mental Health. Source: eScienceCommons

Read More........→January 29, 2013

BlueAnt Ribbon streams your music wirelessly

Enjoying the music on the go is always fun, and today we have a device that will let you enjoy in music wirelessly wherever you go. BlueAnt has announced its latest multi-functional Ribbon music streamer that  lets you stream music via Bluetooth to any speaker. In addition, Ribbon doubles as a headset, because you can attach it to your shirt and connect your headphones to it, so you can enjoy in music
while on the go. Ribbon works as a Bluetooth 3.0 receiver, and it comes with 3.5mm  stereo output, so you can easily connect it to any speaker system that has 3.5mm AUX input, using the AUX cable. We

have to mention that   Ribbon comes with a built-in microphone, so you can use it to for calls as well. As for streaming, Ribbon is using Apt-X technology, and the device itself comes with volume control and

playback buttons.In addition, if you’re using Ribbon with Android or iOS device, you can use it to listen to your text messages. This music streamer will provide you with six hours of play time, and up to 250 hours

of standby time, and as for the recharge, it takes less than two hours for battery to recharge completely. BlueAnt Ribbon music streamer should be available soon for $69. Source: Saqatorrent

Read More........→January 18, 2013

Google patents smart glasses

Google has received three patents for a “wearable display device” which appear to be the foundation for its most talked about latest technology gadget – Project Glass augmented reality glasses. The new glasses could be used much the way a smart phone is by corresponding with friends, listening to music, and searching information. They can also be used as a navigator. Engineers behind Project Glass say that early tests show the glasses are best suited for taking and sharing photos. So far there is no information as to when the new gadget will hit the stores and for how much. Earlier reports said the smart galsses would be commericially available by the end of this year. RIA,  Source; Voice of Russia

Read More........→January 10, 2013

US research says mice can 'sing'

Researchers from Tulane University in New Orleans, US, have found that mice can ‘sing’ like a choir by matching the pitch of their voice to that of others.

The experiment shows that when two male mice of different types are housed together, they slowly began to match the pitch of their songs to each other. The finding contradicts a long-held assumption that mice cannot learn to adapt their voices – a trait thought to be common only to humans, bats and a handful of bird and large mammal species. Although it was previously known that mice make an ultrasonic noise referred to as a “song” to attract mates, it had never been demonstrated that they were capable of changing pitch. The Telegraph, TASS, Source: Voice of Russia

Read More........→December 02, 2012

Now, a musical app that listens to your heart during exercise

Researchers have designed a new "Musical Heart" that enables your smartphone to select music to get your heart pumping during workout. The biofeedback-based system developed by a University of Virginia graduate researcher helps smartphones select music that will help get their owners' heart pumping during exercise and slow it down when they want to cool down or relax. "Whether I am driving, jogging, travelling or relaxing – I never find the appropriate music to listen to," said Shahriar Nirjon, a doctoral student in computer science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. "I believe there are many like me. The problem is: The heart wants to hear something, but our music player does not understand the need. My joy was in connecting them together - in a non-invasive and cost-effective way," Nirjon said. Called "Musical Heart", the system "brings together wellness and entertainment," Nirjon said in a statement. Musical Heart works by merging a microphone that detects the pulse in arteries in the ear with earphones that bring in music from a playlist on a smartphone. An app selects tunes that optimise the heart rate of an individual user based on a given activity, whether running, walking or relaxing - playing fast-paced music for hard workouts, and slowing the beat for cool-downs. An algorithm refines the music selection process of the system by storing heart rate data and calculating the effects of selected music on the rate. Over time, it improves music selections to optimise the user's heart rate. "We've designed Musical Heart to be convenient, non-invasive, personalised and low cost," Nirjon said. Musical Heart uses a pair of specially built earphones equipped with tiny sensors to continuously monitor the user's heart rate and activity level. That physiological information, along with contextual information, is then sent to a remote server, which provides dynamic music suggestions to help the user maintain a target heart rate. The system learns, in essence, to select music that will have a desired effect on heart rate customised to the individual user, based on the effects of past music selections on the heart rate. Source: Indian Express, Image: flickr.com

Read More........→November 15, 2012

Music lessons boost brain, slow aging

By Kerry Ludlam, Woodruff Health Sciences Center It turns out mom was right. Music lessons are good for you, and those benefits may last a lifetime. A recent study conducted by Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, a clinical neuropsychologist in Emory's School of Medicine, offers additional evidence that musical instrumental training, when compared to other activities, may reduce the effects of memory decline and cognitive aging. This is the second study published by Hanna-Pladdy, which confirms and refines findings from an original study published in Neuropsychology in 2011 that revealed that musicians with at least 10 years of instrumental musical training remained cognitively sharp in advanced age. The new findings were published in the July issue of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. “The study confirms that musical activity preserves cognition as we age, by comparing variability in cognitive outcomes of older adults active in musical instrumental and other leisure activities,” says Hanna-Pladdy. “A range of cognitive benefits, including memory, was sustained for musicians between the ages of 60-80 if they played for at least 10 years throughout their life, confirming that maintenance of advantages is not reliant on continued activity. In other words, you don’t use it or lose it. Nonetheless, the study highlighted the critical importance of the timing of musical activity, which may optimize cognitive benefits.” The cognitive enhancements in older musicians included a range of verbal and nonverbal functions, as well as memory, which is the hallmark of Alzhemier’s pathology. The study evaluated the timing of musical engagement to determine whether there is a critical period of musical training for optimal cognitive advantages in advanced age. While years of playing music were the best indication of enhanced cognition in advanced age, the results revealed different sensitive periods for cognitive development across the lifespan. Early age of acquisition, before age nine, predicted verbal working memory functions such as remembering and reorganizing digits in your head, consistent with early sensitive periods in brain development. Sustained musical activity in advanced age predicted other non-verbal abilities involving visuospatial judgment, suggesting it is never too late to be musically active. Continued musical activity in advanced age also appeared to buffer lower educational levels. “This is an exciting finding in light of recent evidence suggesting that high educational levels are likely to yield cognitive reserve that may potentially delay the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms or cognitive decline,” says Hanna-Pladdy. “This also highlights the promising role of musical activity as a form of cognitive enrichment across the lifespan, and it raises the question of whether musical training should eventually be considered an alternative form of educational training.” According to Hanna-Pladdy, to obtain optimal results, individuals should start musical training before age nine, play at least 10 years or more and if possible, keep playing for as long as possible over the age of 60. Source: eScienceCommons

Read More........→August 17, 2012

Amazon Fish In Illinois Lake: South American relative of piranha being caught by fishermen

Writing in his Outdoor blog, Grind TV's Pete Thomas noted another example of an aquarium fish potentially becoming an invasive species due to the careless or irresponsible actions of an home aquarium owner. In the Amazon River there lives the pacu, a relative of the piranha. The pacu has a similar shape to the piranha but can grow to be much larger, weighing in at over 50 pounds. And also similar to the piranha are its set of teeth, but with an interesting twist. They look more like a set of human

molars as the pacu primarily feeds on nuts and seeds which it crushes and grinds up with its teeth and powerful jaws. Because of its piranha-like appearance but less than hostile manner, the pacu pops up in aquariums around the world from time to time. But as it ultimately outgrows most home habitats, they sometimes find themselves cast aside in local rivers or lakes. As supposed herbivores, it would possibly seem that the pacu would be a harmless addition, but there apparently are reports of this fish being responsible for the deaths of two men in Papua New Guinea by castrating them - eeyeowch! So, it is with a measure of concern to city officials, residents and tourists, as we enter the warm summer months, that pacus were reportedly being caught by fishermen in Lake Lou Yaeger in Illinois. With more and more bathers entering the lake to escape the heat, the possibility of someone being bitten begins to increase. As Pete humorously reported in his blog, one key lake official was taking a less than alarmist position regarding the pacu. "Lake superintendent Jim Caldwell, sounding a bit like the Amity Island mayor in Jaws, assured that everything's OK, adding that he has a small swim in the lake regularly. It was about then that you half-expected the scary theme music to begin playing."  Responsible home aquarists always consider the repercussions of disposing of any fish - large or small, teeth or no teeth - in local waterways. Many fish that are sold to fresh and salt water aquarium enthusiasts are, in fact, juveniles only a few weeks old. This makes them fragile and mortality can be high. But if the fish survives and thrives, the owner often can find that they have a fish that is soon outgrowing its habitat. When I was in my junior high school years, I owned several aquariums in which I prided myself in having a dazzling array of fish to impress my folks and the neighbors. (My friends weren't all that interested. It was a bit nerdish, in an age of pre-computer nerds.) There was a local tropical fish store which had some nefarious connections and was able to procure for me a pacu, which I didn't have for too long; the poor thing could barely turn around in the tank. The shop was also able to get me a series of actual piranhas, which are illegal for regular consumers to own, buy, sell, or trade (I'm guessing the statute of limitations has expired). The laws existed to prevent a piranha from ending up in the local watering hole and, even as a kid, I could appreciate that since one nearly bit my finger when I was cleaning the tank one day. So, I can understand the fascination that home aquarists can have in owning exotic fish, but there is a very serious side to their activity that demands responsible decision-making. Many fresh water fish are raised rather than caught in the wild, but some of those fish can grow to be quite large with hungry appetites. Salt water fish can also be raised but some are caught in the wild and at great harm to the reef from where they came. Collectors will sometimes use chemicals or poisons that stun the fish for ease of capture. Unfortunately, the poisons kill the coral and damage the caught fish's internal organs so that it's life expectancy is shortened. While one can debate the value or purpose of home aquariums, there should be total agreement that transplanted fresh or salt water plants and animals can have unforeseen consequences on marine ecosystems. Source: RTSea

Read More........→July 29, 2012

Gadgets for video thrills, rich kids and fat fingers

 

By JESS MANTELL, Whether you are big, small, active or lazy, here is your monthly round-up with a little something for everyone.  JVC action-video camera: Now to catch the potentially viral video snippets of life, you really need to always have the camera rolling — which can be tough when your hands are full of luggage, coffee or handlebars. JVC has just announced a tiny, yet durable, action camera to catch it all. The new JVC GC-XA1 ADIXXION can be taken anywhere as it is truly palm-sized and weighs a mere 126 grams. The ADIXXION is up for any of your year-round adventures and doesn't require any additional casing to keep it safe as it's ready to go straight out of the box. It's waterproof up to 5 meters, dust-proof (so you can take it to Burning Man), freeze-proof (so it's good for treks up Everest), and it can withstand being dropped from 2 meters, presumably without the weight of a person or other equipment falling on top of it. In addition to its tough construction, the ADIXXION offers a lot of great technical features. It has built-in Wi-Fi, a 1.5-inch LCD screen, image stabilizer, HD recording capabilities, and it can take 5 megapixel stills. All video shot with the ADIXXION is recorded as QuickTime-compatible MP4 files which can be sent directly to a PC, smartphone or cloud service using the the built-in Wi-Fi. It can even be streamed live to Ustream. It comes with a USB cable and battery, two protective lens covers and two mounting devices; one flexible, and one goggle mount. There are other mounts available separately such as a bicycle handlebar mount and a helmet mount. Free iPhone and Android apps makes it easy to link to your phone, in turn making for easy playback and control when the camera is strapped to your head. If you aren't already pumped enough to play rough with this cool little camera, I should also mention the fun capture options such as the time lapse recording function and ultra-wide lens. Very cool camera, kind of unfortunate name, the JVC GC-XA1 ADIXXION will be available in late summer for $349.95. Jess Mantell is a PhD student in the department of Media Design

at Keio University. Follow tweets about design, technology and urbanism @jessmantell on Twitter. LEXUS  for kids: Where the Evergreen touch pen is useful for those with fat fingers, this next product is really just for parents with fat wallets who want to spoil their kids — or teach them about fuel efficiency and emissions while they are young. The sleek one-seater toy LEXUS LS600hL — which, like the Model-T Ford of old, comes only in black — is perfect for tots too posh for tricycles and is made by A-kids (www.a-kids.com). It has really great details in the dashboard, body and rims and even has working headlights and a sound system built into the headrest. It retails for ¥44,100. iPhone dialing
wand: Here is a handy little product  for the digitally well endowed — a smartphone touch-pen that plugs into the device's earphone jack. The audio jack accessory trend has really been taking off lately and it is perhaps the contemporary answer to the keitai (mobile phone) strap craze of the 1990s and early 2000s that saw many a Japanese girl's phone weighed down by dozens of cute trinkets. As smartphones tend not to have the little loop for straps, the new way to personalize your phone — when you aren't listening to tunes — is by jamming a little plug in the phone's audio jack which is topped with a decoration: jewels, flowers, and cartoon characters seem to be pretty popular. The Evergreen touch pen is interesting because it is more function than decoration. If, for whatever reason, you don't want to touch your screen — extreme manicure, past run in with the yakuza, fat fingers — this dialing wand will have you banging out emails with precision and leave no smudges on the screen. It comes in five colors (red, purple, green, black, and silver) and retails for a mere ¥299. And if you pair the touch pen up with an audio-jack splitter, you can still type away while listening to your music. Available online atwww.donya.jp. Source: The Japan Times Online, Image

Read More........→July 27, 2012

Buckingham Palace gets projection mapping makeover for Queen's Jubilee celebration

Projection mapping on London's Buckingham Palace topped off celebrations, for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee, that saw Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Paul McCartney take to the stage in front of the royal dwelling. Software developer, d3 provided video mapping and playback of video using 36 Barco HD projectors, provided by XL Video UK. The show, that used d3’s advanced projection simulation toolkit, was designed by Durham Marenghi, with further architectural lighting provided by Neg Earth. Steve Greetham, project manager at XL Events, specified and supplied equipment and crew, both for the projection mapping onto Buckingham Palace, and the onstage wraparound LED screens and IMAG cameras for the concert stage. This was built around the Queen Victoria Monument in front of the Palace. XL Events supplied a total of 36 Barco FLM HD 20K projectors arranged in 6 stacks of 6, 12 Barco Image Pros and 2 Lightware DVI matrice. The company also provided approximately 600 tiles of Pixled FX-11 LED, which formed the large wraparound screen on the main crown-shaped concert stage. A 3D model of the building was created using a laser scanner which was used by Nils Porrmann, a 3D modeller and artist, to set up the d3 stage. Sam Pattinson, creative director of Treatment Studio, commissioned a number of animators created the final content. Chris Bird, director at d3 Technologies, said: "We’ve known Sam since 2003 and to get the chance to do such a monumental event together is just fantastic." d3 Consultancy, d3 Technologies’ experienced in-house technical solutions team, assisted with the production including sequencing to the music, synchronising to timecode and operating the show. Audio for the event was handled by Britannia Row. Source: InAVate

Read More........→June 10, 2012

Skoda to Debut Citigo Rally and DJ Concepts at the 2012 Wörthersee Tour

Carscoop: This week's 2012 Wörthersee Tour will see Skoda revealing two new concept cars of its Citigo mini, which is based on the Volkswagen Up!. For the time being, we only get a single sketch of Skoda's study for a Citigo Rally car that will boast a widened body with flared wheel arches housing 18-inch alloy wheels, a roof scoop and a large rear wing along with a race-spec interior featuring a protective roll cage. The Czech automaker's second concept vehicle will be the Citigo DJ, which as its name suggests, will be transformed into a mobile music station. Skoda said that the DJ will keep visitors entertained throughout the event, which runs from May 16 to 19 at lake Wörthersee in the southern Austrian state of Carinthia. Source: Carscoop

Read More........→June 04, 2012

Justin Bieber+Lady Gaga to Portray Aliens in Men in Black 3

Kevork Djansezian / Kevin Winter, Getty Images

By: Cristin Maher, Mac's UFO News: ‘Men in Black 3′ star Will Smith already spilled the beans that Lady Gaga would be making a cameo in the third installment of the extraterrestrial movie franchise, but now the word on the street is that Justin Bieber has been added to the list of ‘MIB 3′ celebrity cameos. The best part? Bieber and Gaga aren’t set to play just themselves, but aliens from another planet! According to a report from Star Pulse, the Biebs and Mother Monster will portray “aliens who sit on a surveillance board, alongside kooky filmmaker Tim Burton.” Could this really get any better? Gaga and Burton are definitely eccentric, so seeing them as aliens in a film doesn’t seem all that out of the norm, but adding Bieber to this mix will surely make for an extra interesting scene. ‘MIB 3′ director Barry Sonnenfeld talked about their cameos, saying, “In this (installment) there are a few people that you’ll see
up on the surveillance board including Lady Gaga, Tim Burton, who probably knows more about aliens than I do, and let’s see who else… Justin Bieber.” We can’t wait to see this! We wonder if Bieber will have an extra head like Johnny Knoxville did in the second film, or if Gaga will turn into some kind of dazzling alien goddess who runs her own planet. We’ll just have to wait until May 25 to see what the ‘MIB’ masterminds have cooking. Bieber and Gaga aren’t the first music superstars to have appeared in a ‘Men in Black’ flick alongside Agents K (Tommy Lee Jones) and Agent J (Smith). Michael Jackson showed off his acting chops by portraying a suited up fed in the second movie, and Nicole Scherzinger will also reportedly have a part in the newest ‘MIB’ movie. Source: Mac's UFO News

Read More........→May 01, 2012

Music helps keep brain young

Credit: iStockphoto/LindaYolanda

eScienceCommons: Senior citizens who took music lessons as children for at least 10 years score higher on tests of memory and decision-making ability than non-musicians. In the video below, NBC Chicago reports on the findings by Emory neuropsychologist Brenda Hanna-Pladdy and the University of Kansas. “It’s

Read More........→April 23, 2012