May 3, 2024: Archeologists confront the emotional impact of their work, "smart gloves" teach piano, and why sourdough bread tastes the way it does. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | In mid-2021 the Indigenous government Tk̓emlúpste Secwépemc Nation in British Columbia announced that about 200 probable graves of children had been detected near the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Since that announcement, Indigenous communities in Canada and the U.S. have called on archaeologists to help find the unmarked graves of their children. This task has transformed archaeology, writes Kisha Supernant, who is the director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology at the University of Alberta. While they use technical tools like ground-penetrating radar to identify potentially unmarked graves of children, archaeologists must come to terms with the emotional aspects of their work, particularly in circumstances of tragedy. The history: Beginning in the late 1800s and over the course of more than a century, Canadian authorities forcibly removed more than 150,000 Indigenous children from their families and placed them in government-funded, church-run residential schools. Thousands never came home, many dying from neglect, malnutrition, and abuse. Their graves were left unmarked or deliberately concealed.
What the experts say: "Though the journey is long, archaeological methods can be used to tell the stories of the past, both of ancient Indigenous lives and the impacts of colonization, to help build a brighter future," writes Supernant. So far, several thousand unmarked graves have been discovered near the former sites of Indian residential schools. | | | In 2021 the unmarked graves of about 200 Indigenous children were found near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Alper Dervis/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images | | | Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology invented piano-teaching "smart gloves" that use haptic technology, which incorporates physical sensations such as vibrations or force to help with tactile activities. The gloves record one pianist's hand movements while playing and then relay those movements to a student musician through fingertip vibrations, helping the learner build muscle memory and perform the piece with greater precision.
How it works: Researchers embedded small wires linked to a pressure-sensing material in the gloves to detect hand motions. A piano teacher wearing the gloves repeatedly performed a piece of music and a machine-learning algorithm processed their movement on the keys and translated it into instructional vibrations. Students wearing their own gloves then attempted to play the same tune, with the fingertip vibrations guiding them through proper movements.
What the experts say: "Hand-based movements like piano playing are normally really subjective and difficult to record and transfer," says Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student Yiyue Luo, who designed the gloves with colleagues. "But with these gloves we are actually able to track one person's touch experience and share it with another person to improve their tactile learning process."
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