November 5, 2024: Every culture has a form of music, how the "27 club" became a powerful myth, and election downballot results to watch out for tonight. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | An aerial view of the Kayenta Solar Plant, June 23, 2024 in Kayenta, Arizona. Brandon Bell/Getty Images | | | • Several state downballot races in the 2024 presidential election will carry implications for climate policy far beyond state lines. These are the ones to look out for. | 5 min read | | | Something resembling music is found in nearly every culture on Earth. Songs can be lullaby-like, chants or even wails. Researchers analyzed 300 audio recordings by 75 collaborators speaking 55 languages. Each person first sang a traditional song, then recited its lyrics. They also played an instrumental version of the song and described its meaning. The authors showed that pitch height, tempo and pitch stability are quite different whether a person is singing or speaking. Why this is interesting: In their study, the researchers observed the same trends in the pitch and tempo across many different cultures: Tempos, in general, are slower for instrumental or sung music ( top graph), whereas pitches tend to be less stable in natural speech than in music and song ( bottom graph). These trends suggest that music is not derivative of speech--it serves its own purpose.
What the experts say: Song and music may have evolved to unite people, an idea called the social-bonding hypothesis, says study co-author Patrick Savage, a musicologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. "Slower, more regular and more predictable melodies may allow us to synchronize and to harmonize," he says, "and through that, to bring us together in a way that language can't." | | | Duncan Geere and Miriam Quick from Loud Numbers; Source: "Globally, Songs and Instrumental Melodies Are Slower and Higher and Use More Stable Pitches than Speech: A Registered Report," by Yuto Ozaki et al., in Science Advances, Vol. 10; May 15, 2024 (data) | | | People who take brief naps and enter the twilight zone that separates sleep and wakefulness score higher on several measures of creativity than those who undertake the same creative tasks after staying awake, according to a 2023 study. Inventor Thomas Edison was well-known for holding two balls in his hand, and as he drifted asleep he'd drop the balls and glean creative insights from his thoughts during the twilight phase.
Why this is interesting: Neuroscientists long thought that inspiration came from the rapid eye movement stage of sleep, which is rich with dreams and begins an hour or more into the sleep cycle. But the latest evidence puts the spotlight on this much earlier sleep phase as a person drifts between consciousness and sleep.
Why this is cool: Scientists found they could influence the dreaming process. They did so by directing people's dreams toward a specific topic. The more people dreamed about that theme, the more creative they were on tasks related to it. | | | Salvador Dalí found offbeat ways to derive artistic inspiration from his dreams, such as having perfume dropped on his eyelids or letting go of an object to make himself wake up to remember dream content. Bettmann/Getty Images | | | • With exceptions in Florida and the Pacific Northwest, the remainder of the contiguous U.S. received less than 50 percent of normal precipitation in the month of October, making it one of the driest months ever recorded, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In addition to climate change, industrial agriculture, urban sprawl and the concrete infrastructure designed to control water worsen shortages, writes Erica Gies, author of the 2022 book Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge. "Disasters like today's water scarcity are opportunities to rethink standard practices and make hard changes," she writes, which include restoring the original meandering paths of waterways, reintroducing key species that affect hydrologic cycles, and replacing manicured lawns with drought-resistant plants. | 6 min read | | | Naps may be helpful for creativity, but they're also great for times of stress. A 2022 study found that a brief nap during a stressful period improved participants' mental outlooks. Another study from 2011 found that a 30‐minute nap after a sleep‐deprived night (like election night?) can return markers of inflammation like cortisol and leukocyte back to baseline. So give yourself the gift of a nap during stressful times, or any time really. | I'm always looking for ways to improve this newsletter. Send your suggestions and thoughts to: newsletters@sciam.com. Until tomorrow! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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