Move over, 'Laurel or Yanny': Study looks at why we hear talking as singing
after many repetitions University of Kansas
New research appearing June 8,
2018 in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE explores these
ideas further. A team from the
University of Kansas has investigated the "Speech-to-Song Illusion,"
where a spoken phrase is repeated and begins to sound as if
it were being sung. "There's
this neat auditory illusion called
the Speech-to-Song Illusion that musicians in the '60s knew about and used to
artistic effect—but scientists didn't start investigating it until the
'90s," said Michael Vitevitch, professor and chair of psychology at KU,
who conducted the study with undergraduate and graduate student researchers in
the department's Spoken Language Laboratory.
"The illusion occurs when a spoken phrase is repeated— but after
it's repeated several times it begins to sound like it's being sung instead of
spoken." The KU researcher said
previous studies have looked at characteristics of phrases that contribute to
the illusion and have elicited the phenomenon in speakers of English, German
and Mandarin. Further studies have shown
brain regions that process speech to be active when a phrase is perceived as
speech while brain regions that process music fire when the phrase is heard as
song. Read more at https://phys.org/news/2018-06-laurel-yanny-repetitions.html
Phrases from The Lost Art of Mixing, a sequel to the novel The School of
Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
* a sweater Swiss-cheesed by
moths https://fullenglishbooks.com/english-books/full-book-lost-art-of-mixing-9781101609187-read-online-chapter-14 * condescension .
. . a natural by-product of adolescence * https://fullenglishbooks.com/english-books/full-book-lost-art-of-mixing-9781101609187-read-online-chapter-16
Who is Erica Bauermeister? I
was born in Pasadena, California, back when that part of the country was both
one of the loveliest and smoggiest places you could imagine. I remember the arching branches of the oak
tree in our front yard, the center of the patio that formed a private entrance
to our lives. I remember leaning over a
water faucet to run water across my eyes after a day spent playing
outside. It’s never too early to learn
that there is always more than one side to life. I have always wanted to write, but when I
read Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” in college, I finally knew what I
wanted to write--books that took what many considered to be unimportant bits of
life and gave them beauty, shone light upon their meaning. The only other thing I knew for certain back
in college, however, was that I wasn’t grown up enough yet to write them. So I moved to Seattle, got married, and got a
PhD at the University of Washington. Frustrated by the lack of women
authors in the curriculum, I co-authored 500 Great Books by Women: A
Reader’s Guide with Holly Smith and Jesse Larsen and Let’s Hear
It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14 with Holly Smith. In the process I read, literally, thousands
of books, good and bad, which is probably one of the best educations a writer
can have. http://www.ericabauermeister.com/about
Honey Bees Grasp the Concept of Zero Finds Study by Loukia Papadopoulos A new study published in Science http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1124.full
has revealed that honey bees can grasp the concept of zero, an ability
previously believed to be reserved for more evolved species. The paper, entitled "Numerical ordering
of zero in honey bees", is a collaboration of RMIT University in
Melbourne, Australia, the University of Toulouse in France and Monash
University in Clayton, Australia. “We’ve
long believed only humans had the intelligence to get the concept (of zero),
but recent research has shown monkeys and birds have the brains for it as
well. What we haven’t known--until
now--is whether insects can also understand zero," said RMIT University's Associate Professor Adrian
Dyer. Dyer and his colleagues designed a
series of targeted experiments to test honey bees' potential to grasp the
concept of the number zero. In the first
experiment, the bees were evaluated on their ability to understand the concepts
of less than and greater than. In the
second test, the researchers assessed the extent to which the insects
understood the concept of zero in comparison with other animals. Finally, in a third round, the bees'
grasp on the less-than concept using the numbers zero to six was
appraised. The findings were nothing
short of impressive. The researchers determined that the honey bees not only
comprehended the concepts of greater than and less in reference to a blank
stimulus representing the number zero, but they were also able to place zero in
relational order to other numbers. https://interestingengineering.com/honey-bees-grasp-the-concept-of-zero-finds-study
PRX presented a short drama based on an alternative
history where the Apollo 11 lander
came down on the edge of a crater and tipped over. The lander was damaged
beyond repair, so a takeoff was impossible; the oxygen tanks were ruptured, so
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had only the oxygen provided by their space
suits, and all communications were destroyed with both Houston and the command
module. We heard only their communications with each other. It was
very well done, and at the end an actor played the role of President Nixon
giving an address to the world about the failure of the mission. This
address was actually written in 1969 by William Safire, a brilliant writer who
was then a speechwriter for Nixon, as a contingency to be broadcast by Nixon in
the event of a failure resulting in the deaths of the two astronauts.
Well done, with the brevity and pithiness of the Gettysburg Address, but thankfully
not needed! Thank you, Muse reader
for your June 8, 2018 email! Read
Safire's July 18, 1969 two-page memo to H.R. Haldeman (a presidential statement
in the event of moon disaster) at https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf
The
Public Radio Exchange (PRX)
is a nonprofit web-based platform for digital distribution, review, and
licensing of radio programs. The
organization claims to be the largest on-demand catalog of public radio programs available for broadcast and Internet use.
It was formerly known as Public
Radio Remix. As of 2011, two radio
stations, KPBZ in Spokane, Washington and WREM in Canton, New York, air a full-time schedule of
programming from PRX, branded as Public
Radio Remix. Both stations are owned by the same organizations as
their markets' primary National Public Radio affiliates.
PRX Remix also airs on Sirius XM Channel
123. Several other public radio stations
air some, but not all, Public Radio Exchange programming in their
schedules. See list of programs
distributed by PRX at
June 12, 2018 Macedonia
Gets New Name, Ending 27-Year Dispute With Greece by Laura Wamsley Ever
since the Republic of Macedonia declared its independence in 1991, Greece has
been fighting the country over its name. On June 12, 2018 the 27-year impasse
ended as two nations finally came to a resolution: The former Yugoslav republic is getting a new
name, the Republic of North Macedonia. When Yugoslavia disintegrated, one of
its pieces declared itself the Republic of Macedonia. But its southern neighbor, Greece, has regions
that use the same name, and both countries argued that they had the rightful
claim to it. The issue has been heated,
and one with very real repercussions for Macedonia: It hasn't been able to join the European Union or NATO because Greece opposed its
name. It was admitted to the United
Nations as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, because of Greece's
objection. Read more at https://www.npr.org/2018/06/12/619294020/macedonia-gets-new-name-ending-27-year-dispute-with-greece
Samuel Tom Holiday, one of the last surviving
Navajo Code Talkers who used his native language to create an
uncrackable code to help win World War II, died in Southern Utah on June 11,
2018 Monday at the age of 94. Navajo leaders believe fewer than 10 Code
Talkers are still alive today. The exact
number is unknown because the program remained classified for decades after the
war. Holiday was 19 when he went through
Marine Corps boot camp in 1943. He
joined a group of Native Americans who used their native language, which had
complex grammar and was unfamiliar to the rest of the world, to develop a communication code
for the U.S. military that enemies could not decipher. Twenty-nine Navajos were recruited to launch
the Code Talkers program, but there were more than 400 by the end of the war. David
DeMille Read more and see pictures at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/06/12/navajo-code-talker-samuel-holiday-dies/693943002/
The National Security Council has said that it made the video Donald Trump showed
to Kim Jong-un at their Singapore
summit on June 12, 2018 in an unorthodox effort to persuade him of the
benefits of denuclearisation. The four-minute
video in Korean and English was made in the style of an extended
action movie
trailer and portrayed Kim and Trump as men of destiny with the future
of the world in their hands. The video,
which Trump showed to the press after playing it on an iPad for Kim, is
credited to “Destiny Pictures Productions”, prompting a flurry of press
inquiries to a film
production company of that name in California. Mark
Castaldo, the company’s founder, said in an email it had “no involvement in the
video”. Garrett Marquis,
an NSC spokesman said in a statement: “The video was created by the National
Security Council to help the president demonstrate the benefits of complete
denuclearization, and a vision of a peaceful and prosperous Korean peninsula.” When asked about the decision to present the
video as made by a non-existent company, an NSC spokesman said there would be
no further comment. “From my
understanding, they were just using ‘Destiny Pictures’ as a play on words. It just so happens there’s a studio by that
name in California,” said Ned Price, a former NSC spokesman. Julian Borger
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1901
June 13, 2018
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