Summer Rhythms.

Hello loyal readers.

As you might have noticed, it's been a really long time since I've posted here. That's for a few reasons that I will explain below.

I was all ready to post about an article on the the brain and beat perception last night, but then started to feel like I needed to do a lot more research on neuroanatomy and functional brain imaging before I felt qualified enough to talk about it here. I will definitely post about the article soon, but before I did I wanted to ask for a little bit of input from anyone who reads this blog.

What kinds of things do you want to see here?

I really enjoy writing summaries of scientific research papers that render them easier to understand by a general audience, and I have a ton of papers on the intersection of neuroscience and music that I want to yap about here, but at times I avoid posting on this blog because these papers often require a lot of research on my part in order for me to feel like I'm summarizing them properly. Of course, this will get easier as I learn more about neurobiology, but for now it's resulted in months without any posts.

Thus in order to have some more frequency and variety in posts, I started the scientists and musicians (SciMuses) interview series so this blog would be a little more exciting. I have some exciting prospects that will be showing up here soon as well. But between reading up for current science research posts and tracking down awesome scientists/musicians to interview, I was wondering what I should post about here. Music that I'm currently listening to? Links to related news articles? Things in general I find exciting?

All I'm asking is, let me know! I definitely want to be posting more here, so finding things to post that don't require so much effort to research before posting might be one way to do it.


I'll leave you with my current favorite summer jam:

The Inaugural SciMuse Interview!

I'm pleased to present the subject of the first Scientist-Musician series of interviews, Toaster Sunshine, who is a self-described immunologist, hacker, and musician. This guy is doing so many amazing things that it's hard to not be inspired by his creativity in multiple areas. I'm honored to have him as the first interviewee.


First of all, where did you go to school and sort of research are you doing?

I did my undergrad at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor in Cell and Molecular Biology with an unpragmatic minor in German. I am still working on getting into grad school and am still awaiting word on many of my applications out in this current cycle. I now do research in adaptive immunology at the University of Michigan Medical School. Specifically, I am studying the dynamics of T- and B-cell proliferation in non-lymphatic organs in response to infection. This means I grind up a lot of organs and run them through a flow cytometer.

What got you interested in both science and music?

I was interested in music before I realized I was interested in science as more of a career than as school classes. In fact, at one point in high school while I was in both the school's jazz band (upright bass) and a death metal band (bass guitar) I viewed college as a fallback career if the music I did after getting my degree didn't work out. Heh.

I also played chamber music (and some industrial jazz) through college on cello, but have had to lay the cello aside due to how technically demanding it is to focus on science and making stuff. I also make computer music with Reason 4 and have amassed several hours of finished music. Some of it smashed classical instrumentation together with hip-hop/industrial beats while other bits are more like dubstep.

Do you have any additional projects outside the lab?

When I'm not in the lab, I'm usually working at the hackerspace I am helping to found in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We're called All Hands Active and we maintain a common pool of tools and parts where anyone can build anything they want to. I hope it also becomes a start-up incubator.



In this space, I have built a 2-string slide electric guitar out of a glass bottle, wooden plank, copper wire, and drywall screws and am currently trying to build some flex sensors to be the variable resistors in an Atari Punk Circuit. This latter is a prototype for the suit of flex sensors I intend to build to feed through MIDI to make music based upon my movement.

Lots of the other hackers at All Hands Active make musical stuff as well. One of them recently made a tonal drum out of a propane tank (link to a video of it here!), others are building carbon fiber instruments, and there's one guy who likes to tape piezos to old speakers and route it through an amp, then modulate the resulting feedback by tearing holes in the speaker cone with chopsticks.

Where do you see your multiple interests taking you career-wise? Is science still more of a "fall-back" career for you? Or do you plan to create a career out of a combination of all your interests?

You've asked a good question that I'm wrestling with right now. The biological engineering programs I applied to for this coming fall don't seem to have worked out, so I'm currently trying to suss out the flaws in my plans and records. I really like immunology, it's complex and chaotic and runs all over the place like pancake batter through a sieve. But at the same time, I really like mathematics and computers and building robots and things that go "blwtaga;gb!". I want to merge all of these things together into 1 career of awesomeness, but as of yet I haven't found a viable way forward that encompasses all of these things. Computational immunology seems like a possibility, but then again at the same time I'm currently trying to figure out if I'd rather go for founding a start-up company or whether to continue polishing myself on paper to get into grad school and then worry about possible entrepreneurship afterwards.

Thanks again to Toaster Sunshine for volunteering for the first interview of the Sci-Muse interview series. For more of his creative undertakings, you can check out his blog, Mad Scientist Jr. here. All Hands Active was recently featured on the Make Zine Blog, so check that out too!

If you'd like to participate in this interview series too, please don't hesitate to drop me a line!

Science, Music, Machines, Technology!

Before I leave to play the first show of tour with my band, Pink Flag (check us out if we're coming near you), I just wanted to make a quick post with a couple of things that I feel embody the spirit of Science with Moxie.

First, this whimsical little video by OK Go that has been making the internet rounds recently:


And second, this really rad sinewave synthesizer that makes it easy and fun to create your own little pretty ditties.

I've got some Scientist/Musician interviews in the works, but always looking for more volunteers. Now all I need is a name. All I got right now is SciMuses. I'm open to suggestions.

PLos ONE Blog Post of the Month!

I'm honored to have my post Musical Emotions: Chills Edition selected as Blog Post of the Month by PLoS ONE!

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) has open access model of research publishing that really appeals to me, since many scientific papers are unavailable for viewing without paying a significant fee. This fact puts a major roadblock to scientific discovery by both the general public and people doing research at less-funded institutions. You can read a little bit more about the open access model of publishing here. I'm a big fan!

I'm really excited that my Research Blogging is going well, and you can definitely expect more posts on interesting science publications to come!

Musicians/Scientists Interview Series

I have always been of the opinion that science and art are made of mutual stuff. They are both highly creative, innovative, exciting fields that are born of both the solitude and collaboration of like minds. They are both about discovery and looking at the world through new eyes and a different view. They both have the ability to change minds and culture.

As someone who is a both a budding young scientist and musician, I'm pretty interested in the perspective of everyone else who manages to combine the two forces of logic and creativity. So I'm going to be starting a series of interviews here on Science with Moxie with people who are scientists and musicians. I'm fortunate to know a few people who fit both those descriptions already, but if you want to be added to my list, feel free to drop me a line!

Musical Emotions: Chills Edition

CHILLS.

I'm one of the people who gets them when I listen to music I find really, really enjoyable. In fact, there are a whole range of emotions I can go through while listening to something I really like. Last Saturday night, I definitely was on the peak end of experiencing intense music-related emotions while watching my bandmate and favorite drummer, Jessica Caesar play during this song at The Dirty Little Heaters' CD release show. Take a look:



So what is this whole "chills" thing about anyway? What makes listening to music so pleasurable and fun? One theory that a group of researchers decided to test was that music is so much fun for us to listen to because the pleasure we feel while listening correlates to a sort of physical emotional response.




The Rewarding Aspects of Music Listening Are Related to Degree of Emotional Arousal


In order to test this, they got twenty-six suckers experimental subjects to agree to be hooked up to this machine that takes measurements of all kinds of bodily responses that basically told the researchers how psyched the people were to be listening to different types of music. Here's what that machine looked like:



These robotic-looking hand and torso machines measured the listeners' heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, galvanic skin response (GSR), and blood volume pulse (BVP) amplitude. The music the subjects listened to was music they had picked out themselves that they really enjoyed, so much that it gave them the chills. As a control, the researchers selected music that the subjects rated beforehand as neutral or "boring" in order to compare the subjects' physical response readings from that dull music to the chills-inducing music. The experiment took place as the subjects sat in a sound-proof room, listened to the music, the machines took their measurements, and the subjects pressed buttons on their robot-hands to indicate what they were feeling during each moment that the music played. The ratings ranged from "meh" to "pleasurable" to "whoa, I got chills." But, of course, the ratings were on a more scientific and quantitative rating scale of 1-3 (1 ="neutral," 2="low pleasure," 3 = "high pleasure," and a fourth button = "chills" because, as you can see above, they only had a thumb to work with).

The results were pretty interesting. In all the physical markers stated above (i.e. heart rate, respiration) they saw significant differences in readings between the music the subjects found boring and the music they found pleasurable. The pleasurable music got a higher physiological response out of the subjects, while the boring music didn't seem to have much of an effect on the markers of emotional arousal. This makes sense because my heart isn't exactly pounding when I hear some boring elevator music in a department store.

They also found that the chills were reported at the same moments in the music that the subjects reported ratings of highest pleasure. In fact, 80% of the chills occurred at the highest moment of pleasure reported. Again, this makes a lot of sense to me because I don't exactly get chills when I'm feeling that the music I'm listening to is good, but not great. I get chills when I can't tear my attention away and a musical experience feels all encompassing and highly pleasurable, and it seems that was what the subjects in the study were feeling too.

The most interesting thing they found was that the chills the subjects reported matched right up with the peak readings from the physical markers of emotional arousal. Check it out on the graph below:



The different boxes show the different physical indicators of emotional arousal of which the machines took measurements. As you can see, they all peaked at the moment when the subjects reported experiencing chills. The two exceptions here are skin surface temperature and BVP amplitude, but these actually got LOWER instead of higher like the other factors.

So basically, the researchers came away from this study with a strong correlation between subjective emotional response and objective physical response to music. When we get chills or feel intense pleasure when listening to music we enjoy, there is an actual range of bodily responses that go along with that! This seems like common sense, but this is important scientifically because having an actual, quantitative measure of the changes our bodies go through when experiencing good music opens doors to scientists thinking about other questions like, "why is music so unique that it causes actual emotional and physical arousal?"

Usually emotional responses have a definite function, such as joy from eating good food serves to keep us alive, or bonding with friends keeps us happy and connected to our fellow humans. Feeling these emotions helps us by making sure we keep doing the things that are good for our survival and well-being. But music is one of the only things that makes us happy without having a clear beneficial function to our survival as human beings. I think that makes it pretty special and interesting, and that makes me content to consume and play it.

P.S. Another fun thing to do with the paper is to check out what music the initial pool of subjects picked for the study as their favorites (this link opens a doc file with the full list). As with any wide pool of people, the results range widely!

Salimpoor VN, Benovoy M, Longo G, Cooperstock JR, & Zatorre RJ (2009). The rewarding aspects of music listening are related to degree of emotional arousal. PloS one, 4 (10) PMID: 19834599

ScienceOnline 2010: A great experience!

After a long hiatus from blogging, I am back, and inspired by the awesomeness that is the ScienceOnline2010 conference here in Research Triangle Park, NC.

I've been an occasional lurker of ScienceBlogs.com for a few years now, and reading the informative, insightful, and entertaining posts of the bloggers there is what originally inspired me to start up Science with Moxie. I'm also very interested in the intersection between science, popular culture, and policy, so once I found out that many of the scientists/bloggers/writers/journalists that I've admired over the years were going to be in attendance right in my backyard (less than 15 minutes from my house!) I jumped at the chance to attend.

The conference definitely did not disappoint. There were a couple workshops on the Friday before that I attended on blogging and on podcasting. I was sitting in the second workshop on podcasting waiting for it to begin and trying to do my best impression of the lurking I do while browsing science blogs online when one of the wonderful creators of the conference, Bora Zivkovic, came up to me and greeted me by name. It was completely awesome and kind of surprising considering that I'd only interacted with him through Twitter. That first burst of friendliness was a great representation of the overall spirit of the conference. It seemed that little steps were taken at very turn to ensure a pleasant and fun experience, including a tasty locally grown lunch from two of my favorites, Saladelia's and Locopops.

It was a little surreal to spot all the faces that I've only seen in pixelated photos on the side of blogs or at the top of e-articles. I think the most OMGZ NERD FAMOUS person I recognized there was Mr. Carl Zimmer of New York Times and NPR fame. I didn't take the opportunity to talk to him because it was enough to bask in the radiance of his nerd rays from afar.

The sessions were spectacular. I attended a few that were really helpful in gaining perspective on career options in the broad fields covered by the conference. Actually, one of the most exciting things was the sheer diversity of the professions present at the conference. I got to mingle with authors, journalists, scientists, professors, educators, lawyers, bloggers, and people involved in the entertainment media. I don't think I've ever come across a conference so teeming with energy and excitement about new media, technology, and the places that it can take us as a society. The whole experience was extremely positive, and inspired me to keep typing away at this lil' ol' blog.

P.S. You can view some shots from the conference in the video below. I make a cameo at 4:25!