Daily Archives: 15 Mar 06

ITunes Tricks to Keep Your Music Listening Interesting

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Andy Budd’s ingenious implementation of iTunes’ smart playlists:

“One of the problems … is keeping your music collection interesting. You’ll want to hear newer songs more often than older ones, yet at the same time you’ll want to make sure that the old music doesn’t get lost. You want to hear your favourite songs slightly more often than everything else, but you don’t want to keep listening to the same old tracks over and over again. As such you need to make sure your playlists have a good degree of variety as well as and a high churn rate. The way to achieve this is by utilising smart playlists, however it can be quite difficult getting the right balance.”

Accidental Stereo

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“It is now 20 years or so since Californian record collectors Brad Kay and Steven Lasker came up with the intriguing theory that some old mono recordings were accidentally made in stereo, long before LP stereo was launched in 1958.

In the 1920s and 1930s there was no tape, so studios cut recordings directly onto wax discs. Because a lot could go wrong, they played safe by simultaneously cutting two discs. Sometimes they played extra safe by using two microphones, one for each disc. The result was a matched pair of recordings, each with a different sound perspective.

Brad Kay hunted down matched pairs of old discs and tried playing one as the left channel and the other as the right. Some engineers who heard his ‘accidental stereo’ recreations thought it was just an illusion created by slight playback differences between two identical recordings. Others thought the stereo sounded too real to be written off.” (New Scientist)

A new CD release of Edward Elgar’s music conducted by the composer includes a 1933 overture in “accidental stereo”.

Republicans Happier than Democrats

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“Overall happiness among U.S. residents has not changed much over the years, according to the latest survey by the Pew Research Center that finds 34 percent of adults are very happy. Among 3,014 telephone respondents, half reported being pretty happy, and 15 percent said they are not too happy. The survey, released this week, points out several disparities based on lifestyle, beliefs and political persuasion:

  • Republicans are happier than Democrats.

  • People who worship frequently are happier than those who don’t.

  • The rich are happier than the poor.

  • Whites and Hispanics are happier than blacks.

  • Married people are happier than the unmarried.

  • Dog owners and cat owners rate the same.

  • Sunbelt residents are happier than everyone else.” (Yahoo! News)

(Some of these findings, of course, support the old assertion that ignorance is bliss. Given that the study deems around one third of the American public truly happy, what does that say about the American ignorance quotient??)

High Caffeine Pop from ‘Energy Drinks’ Revealed

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“Most so-called energy drinks are loaded with caffeine far above the FDA limit set for carbonated colas such as Pepsi or Coke, researchers here reported… Energy drinks — with brand names such as Red Bull and SoBe No Fear — are not included in the FDA regulation that limits caffeine in colas or sodas… Because caffeine content is not disclosed on the label, these products may pose a health threat to unsuspecting consumers who should limit their caffeine intake, such as those with hypertension, pregnant women, or those who suffer from anxiety attacks…” (Medpage Today)

Single Protein Compound May Start Memory Decline

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Does rodent brain study point to a candidate model for ’cause’ of Alzheimer’s disease? The derivative of amyloid-beta precursor protein (APP), which is linked to the “plaques” and “neurofibrillary tangles” that are characteristic of the Alzheimer’s brain, is well on the way to meeting Koch’s postulates, the formal requirements that allow us to say that a substance has a causal role in a disease. First, it is found regularly in the brains of animals affected with a form of memory loss that is considered an animal model of Alzheimer’s. It is not found in the brains of unaffected animals. When extracted from affected brains and given to healthy animals, they develop signs of memory loss. And the same protein appears in human brains. The mild cognitive deficits which precede the development of fullblown Alzheimer’s dementia could be caused by this protein demonstrated to cause transient memory deficits in rodents. It might be the first step in the cascade of changes to brain proteins that underlie the degenerative process in Alzheimer’s. If this finding is borne out, it holds out the promise of early detection of the Alzheimer’s disease process before dramatic cognitive deficits develop. Identification of the protein could also lead to the development of medications which block its actions or vaccines to immunize patients against the development of Alzheimer’s. (MedPage Today)

Silent Struggle

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A controversial new theory depicts pregnancy not as a harmonious relationship between the pregnant mother and the fetus she is carryng but as a struggle over the nutrients she will provide.

“Dr. Haig’s theory has been gaining support in recent years, as scientists examine the various ways pregnancy can go wrong.

His theory also explains a baffling feature of developing fetuses: the copies of some genes are shut down, depending on which parent they come from. Dr. Haig has also argued that the same evolutionary conflicts can linger on after birth and even influence the adult brain. New research has offered support to this idea as well. By understanding these hidden struggles, scientists may be able to better understand psychological disorders like depression and autism.” (New York Times )

Haig argues that evolutionary selection should favor fetuses the invasiveness of whose sprouting placental blood vessels is more effective in wresting nutrients from their hosts, while mothers who restrain the incursion to have several successful pregnancies to spread their genes would similarly have an advantage. This theory appealingly explains the baffling condition of late-pregnancy high blood pressure called pre-eclampsia, which affects around 6% of pregnancies, as an extreme version of this struggle in which the fetus causes maternal hypertension to pump more blood in through the relatively low-pressure placenta. But be sure to read to the end of the article for the even more intriguing discussion of how this maternal-fetal conflict, played out in the arena of control of fetal gene expression, may shape the offspring’s behavior and social functioning postnatally.