SYNESTHESIA (part one) Our main references for this episode were: Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia (Cytowic, Eagleman, 2009) Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (Sacks, 2007) Synesthesia: a union of the senses (Cytowic, 2002) Think you might be one? www.synesthete.org Interview with Martha Cluver and Caleb Burhans. Blogs dissing the [...]

BIOSONICS AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: BRAIN EXHIBIT Exhibit site COLOR ORGAN 1730 Jesuit, Father Louis Bertrand Castel Picture of A Wallace Rimington’s color organ Extensive article on Color Organs by Kenneth Peacock — PDF Youtube Prometheus NEWS Scientists at Atlas, the particle physics experiment at the large hadron collider, have recorded an album. All [...]

Trombones are funny. When Should Children Start Musical Training? Overview discussion of the cognitive impact of musical training A small sampling of studies: Keyboard training in pre-schoolers: Significant improvement on the spatial-temporal test was found for the keyboard group only “Still an open question” Review Increased math achievement Kid Conductor: Rite of Spring Oldest musical instruments [...]

Paul Falstad has some nice java applets that explore acoustics (and all sorts of other deliciously nerdy things).

When talking about our podcast, I’ve been asked a few times whether I’ve read This is Your Brain on Music. And when I say um, err, not yet, I’ve been told I’m pretty gutsy to start a podcast about music and science without reading it. So, OK, I’m reading it. Jeez. This podcast is, for [...]

Wine Glass Trombone simple physics of wine glass singing OK I didn’t actually read this study (they want money, I don’t have money), but the abstract is what gave me the idea for the segment. The Brains of Opera Singers The brain of opera singers Discussion on bps research digest Discussion on the psych files [...]

SMC Episode 1