Using Music To Unlock a Locked Brain
Have you seen this video? If not, grab some tissues and get comfortable, because the water, it just comes out of your face.
Dementia, Alzheimer’s, stroke … the list of horrible neurological impairments goes on and on. These are people whose brains are no longer communicating with the world around them, failing to make sense of the inputs and outputs. But that doesn’t mean that their brains are completely broken.
When we look into the eyes of those suffering from these disorders, we see that the human is still inside, in different ways for different patients. Are they fully vocal and trapped in a body without speech? Do they hear your every word and are unable to respond? For some, like this wonderful clip shows, the brain’s connections between music, emotion, and how we use it to communicate beyond speech might still be intact. Music could be our only way in for some people.
I’ve posted the original video here from MusicandMemory.org. If you’d like to help or donate a new or used iPod, visit their website.
The film “Alive Inside” is playing at NYC’s Rubin Museum of Art beginning next week. For more on the science behind music therapy, check this out. And here’s some Cab Calloway for ya, Henry!!!!!
Ahh, the pure joy of science :)
(by MusicandMemory1)
The Ocean Conservancy, which organizes an annual International Coastal Clean-Up, has published its results in the 2012 Trash Index. You’re not imagining it: as the global population swells, tankers continue to leak oil, and plastic water bottles continue to be our favorite way to drink tap water, the world’s beaches are getting dirtier.
Nearly 600,000 volunteers worked in multiple countries to pick up and record the over nine million pounds of trash listed in this report. Check out their trashy findings, download a helpful pocket guide to recycling and if you’re inclined, donate to help their efforts. And for the love of all things oceanic, if you smoke, find a better place than the ocean or ground to throw your cigarette butts (the number one piece of trash found on beaches)!
Image: Ocean Conservancy
Watch the skies tonight!
Hey folks! Check your meteor calendars! Tonight marks the next major event of 2012, with the Lyrid meteor shower. Best viewed from the northern hemisphere, look to the northeast after midnight until dawn. The meteors will peak then, radiating off the east side of the bright star in Lyra up there (although you could see them anywhere in the sky).
Here’s a complete guide from EarthSky on what to look for tonight. Best of all? No moon to get in the way!
Meteor Showers 2012
A calendar of all the major meteor showers taking place in 2012 that I drew up.
Of course, this isn’t all of the meteor events this year. Only the ones with the best chance of being visible. I chose only events with a Zenith Hourly Rate (ZHR, the number of peak events per hour) above 10. You should also consider the moon phase for that date, which I did not include.
How to use this:
- The date on the left is the early morning after midnight on the day it will peak (so “October 7” is between midnight and sunrise on the morning of the 7th).
- The constellation represents the point in the sky that the shower will “originate” from.
- Choose someplace dark, away from city lights, and bring a blanket and a friend.
- Enjoy.
To calculate the sunrise/sunset for your area on a specific date, go here. Many more details about each event can be found in this summary from EarthSky. Some events will favor the North or South Hemispheres, but such is life.
Feel free to distribute freely!
The Myth of Sustainable Meat
Oh, there goes that.
A vegetarian lays out the economic realities and environmental impacts of “sustainable” agriculture.
For all the strengths of these alternatives, however, they’re ultimately a poor substitute for industrial production. Although these smaller systems appear to be environmentally sustainable, considerable evidence suggests otherwise.
Grass-grazing cows emit considerably more methane than grain-fed cows. Pastured organic chickens have a 20 percent greater impact on global warming. It requires 2 to 20 acres to raise a cow on grass. If we raised all the cows in the United States on grass (all 100 million of them), cattle would require (using the figure of 10 acres per cow) almost half the country’s land (and this figure excludes space needed for pastured chicken and pigs). A tract of land just larger than France has been carved out of the Brazilian rain forest and turned over to grazing cattle. Nothing about this is sustainable.
The issue is scale - we can’t have 100 million small farms for each household, and industrial agriculture is the only reasonable, viable, and therefore sustainable answer to human food needs. (Pretty please, before you send me angry msgs, I kindly ask you to read FAO’s “Ethical Issues in Food” and UM’s “Ethical Issues in Farming“(PDF). At least skim them, and think in terms of “scale.” Arguments for ethical treatment of ag animals are great. But the case for ethical treatment is not strong enough to eliminate the need for industrial scale farming).
Lovely followers, does anyone have data or a before/after study that shows greenroofs have actually lowered temps in a city? Msg me here.
Toronto becomes first city to mandate green roofs
Toronto is the first city in North America with a bylaw that requires roofs to be green. And we’re not talking about paint. A green roof, also known as a living roof, uses various hardy plants to create a barrier between the sun’s rays and the tiles or shingles of the roof. The plants love the sun, and the building (and its inhabitants) enjoy more comfortable indoor temperatures as a result.
Toronto’s new legislation will require all residential, commercial and institutional buildings over 2,000 square meters to have between 20 and 60 percent living roofs. Although it’s been in place since early 2010, the bylaw will apply to new industrial development as of April 30, 2012. While this is the first city-wide mandate involving green roofs, Toronto’s decision follow’s in the footsteps of other cities, like Chicago and New York.
Under the direction of Mayor Richard Daley the city of Chicago put a 38,800 square foot green roof on a 12 story skyscraper in 2000. Twelve years later, that building now saves $5000 annually on utility bills, and Chicago boasts 7 million square feet of green roof space. New York has followed suit, and since planting a green roof on the Con Edison Learning Centre in Queens, the buildings managers have seen a 34 percent reduction of heat loss in winter, and reduced summer heat gain by 84 percent.
But lower utility bills aren’t the only benefit of planting a living roof. In addition to cooling down the city, green roofs create cleaner air, cleaner water, and provide a peaceful oasis for people, birds and insects in an otherwise polluted, concrete and asphalt-covered environment.
Harvard Science & Cooking Lectures - Eat 'Em Up
Who says you have to get into an ivy league school to experience ivy league awesomeness? Harvard has been teaming scientists up with world-class chefs to deliver lectures on the science of cooking since last year.
And now you can watch them all online! Featuring greats like Ferran Adrià (elBulli), David Chang (momofuku), Wylie Dufresne (wd~50) and more.
Chlorophyll vs. Hemoglobin.
Reason #232 to eat less meat. Though, to be fair, this could easily apply to factory-farmed vegetables and fruit as well.
Re-posting (I think), because we always need a reminder.
