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The Placebo Effect

To test new drugs, researchers usually divide their subjects into two groups. One group receives the experimental drug. The other receives a placebo or 'sugar pill' that should have no effect on the illness. Participants don't know which group they are in. In double blind studies, not even their doctors know. Nevertheless, more than one in three of ...

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PlaceboEffect
Engineering

Making Cars Out of Soup

There was an old TV show set on a spaceship some time in the future which included a machine about the size of a microwave oven. Whenever people wanted something like a meal or a component to repair ... Continue reading

MakingCarsOutofSoup
Physics

Quarks

Quarks are the most fundamental particles that we know of. Both protons and neutrons are made of quarks. We know quarks exist; we have experimental proof. However nobody has been able to isolate them; ... Continue reading

Quarks
Physics

Can Wint-O-Green Lifesavers® Light up Your Life?

Next time you're bored, grab a pack of Wint-O-Green Lifesavers® and lock yourself in the bathroom. Shut the blinds and make sure the room is pitch black. Allow your eyes to adjust and open the pack ... Continue reading

WintOGreenLifesavers
Science

Benjamin Franklin, Science Founding Father

While popularly known for his role as one of the United States' founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin was also a renowned scientist who made a number of substantial contributions in the field of Earth ... Continue reading

BenjaminFranklin

Which Came First? The Words or the Melody?

WordsMelodyThere's good evidence that we're born into the world with an innate understanding of music, and a natural response to it. You don't need to be a child psychologist to know that babies don't have to be taught to find comfort in a lullaby. Babies can memorize melodies well before they learn how to talk. Believe it or not, they're even studying the pitch, rhythm, and intonation of their mother's voice while they're still in the womb. As soon as they're born, they can tell the difference between the melody of their mother tongue and that of any other. That's the melody that they pay attention to as they apply themselves to the task of learning the syntax and vocabulary of their native language.

Some aspects of language are processed by the same parts of the right hemisphere that make sense of music. But the left hemisphere's language centers are used for some aspects of music appreciation, too. Recent brain imaging studies show that we use some of the same parts of the brain that process the structure of language when we analyze the structure of music. The more sophisticated your knowledge of music -- the better, for example, you know how to take apart the structural details of a musical piece -- the more your left hemisphere's language regions become involved. Whether our ancestors first used those neural circuits for language or for music is anybody's guess.