January 13, 2025: See mind-blowing photos from the Los Angeles fires. Plus, how our brains tell the difference between speech and music, and new types of "paraparticles." —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Particles known as fermions (shown in this illustration) can't share the same state. Roman Andrade 3Dcienca/Science Photo Library | | | • Theoretical physicists predict the existence of exotic "paraparticles" that defy classification and could exist in many dimensions. | 4 min read | | | • The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision this week as to whether it upholds a law that requires TikTok to be sold by January 19. Here's what that means for those who use the app. | 3 min read | | | Are you enjoying this newsletter? If you want to dive deeper into the articles I link to, consider a subscription to Scientific American. We have special discounts for Today in Science readers! | | | More than 10,000 structures have burned across nearly 40,000 acres in the Los Angeles region. The fires have been driven by extreme Santa Ana winds, which turn brush fires into infernos: the winds rush toward the coast from the desert through narrow mountain canyons, reaching hurricane-force levels in some places. It has been a very warm and dry winter so far in Southern California, and the intense winds blow embers from dry, burning brush ahead of the fire front. | | | Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images | Smoke from the Palisades Fire billows out over the ocean on January 8. Both that blaze and the Eaton Fire have generated huge smoke plumes that have left nearby neighborhoods with poor air quality.
| | | The scale of the fires becomes clearer in this infrared satellite image that shows the heat signature of homes and other buildings in Altadena burning from the Eaton Fire. | | | Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images | Gusts during the height of the event reached above 70 and 80 miles per hour in places. In one part of the San Gabriel Mountains they reached 99 mph. The speedy winds sent embers far ahead of the fire front, igniting spot fires and setting homes, trees and other structures ablaze. | | | How does the human brain tell the difference between music and speech? Researchers asked 300 study participants to listen to audio clips and indicate whether the sounds were speech or music. Audio clips with slower amplitude-modulation–that is, slow changes in the volume, or "amplitude," over time–were more likely to be judged as music. The opposite pattern applied for speech. These findings suggest that the brain associates slower, more regular changes in amplitude with music and faster, irregular changes with speech.
How it works: Speaking is for communicating. Moving the muscles that control the jaw, tongue and lips usually happens at a speed of around 4 to 5 hertz. One hypothesis about music is that it evolved to increase human connection through synchronized moving bodies (swaying, dancing), and this is better accomplished at slower speeds, closer to 2 to 3 hertz.
What the experts say: There's likely more to the story, says Andrew Chang, a postdoctoral fellow at New York University. "Amplitude modulation is most likely just one factor—one line, perhaps, on the addressed envelope—that can help explain our brain's amazing capacity for discernment." | | | • On October 8 last year, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the development of machine learning. The next day, the chemistry Nobel honored protein structure prediction using an artificial intelligence tool. Unless we pursue AI carefully, the Nobel committee may one day give a Peace Prize to the people cleaning up the terrible consequences of its use, just as it did with nuclear physics, writes Y Cooper, a mathematician studying deep learning at the University of Notre Dame. "There are parallels between the development of nuclear weapons from basic physics research, and the risks posed by applications of AI emerging from work that began as fundamental research in computer science." he says. "I am concerned that my colleagues and I are insufficiently connected to the effects our work could have." | 5 min read | | | If you're looking for ways to help the situation in Southern California, consider donating to the World Central Kitchen (which distributes meals), or the Pasadena Humane Society (which is dispatching search and rescue for every animal reported as left behind in fire-affected areas). NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), which runs the Mars Perseverance and Curiosity rover missions, remains untouched by the Eaton fire so far, but they report that some 150 employees have lost their homes and many more are displaced. Caltech and JPL have launched a disaster relief fund to support their staff who have been affected. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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