In this nearly 4-hour SPECIAL EPISODE, Rob Reid delivers a 100-minute monologue (broken up into 4 segments, and interleaved with discussions with Sam) about the looming danger of a man-made pandemic, caused by an artificially-modified pathogen. The risk of this occurring is far higher and nearer-term than almost anyone realizes.
Rob explains the science and motivations that could produce such a catastrophe and explores the steps that society must start taking today to prevent it. These measures are concrete, affordable, and scientifically fascinating—and almost all of them are applicable to future, natural pandemics as well. So if we take most of them, the odds of a future Covid-like outbreak would plummet—a priceless collateral benefit.
Rob Reid is a podcaster, author, and tech investor, and was a long-time tech entrepreneur. His After On podcast features conversations with world-class thinkers, founders, and scientists on topics including synthetic biology, super-AI risk, Fermi’s paradox, robotics, archaeology, and lone-wolf terrorism. Science fiction novels that Rob has written for Random House include The New York Times bestseller Year Zero, and the AI thriller After On. As an investor, Rob is Managing Director at Resilience Reserve, a multi-phase venture capital fund. He co-founded Resilience with Chris Anderson, who runs the TED Conference and has a long track record as both an entrepreneur and an investor. In his own entrepreneurial career, Rob founded and ran Listen.com, the company that created the Rhapsody music service. Earlier, Rob studied Arabic and geopolitics at both undergraduate and graduate levels at Stanford, and was a Fulbright Fellow in Cairo. You can find him at www.after-on.
Researchers are blurring the lines between science and art by showing how a laser can be used to create artistic masterpieces in a way that mirrors classical paints and brushes. The new technique not only creates paint-like strokes of color on metal but also offers a way to change or erase colors.
“We developed a way to use a laser to create localized color on a metallic canvas using a technique that heats the metal to the point where it evaporates,” said research team leader Vadim Veiko from ITMO University in Russia. “With this approach, an artist can create miniature art that conveys complex meaning not only through shape and color but also through various laser-induced microstructures on the surface.”
In Optica, The Optica l Society’s (OSA) journal, Veiko and colleagues show that their new laser tools can be used to create unique colorful paintings, including a miniature version of Van Gogh’s painting “The Starry Night.”
Recent work has shown that human auditory cortex contains neural populations anterior and posterior to primary auditory cortex that respond selectively to music. However, it is unknown how this selectivity for music arises. To test whether musical training is necessary, we measured fMRI responses to 192 natural sounds in 10 people with almost no musical training. When voxel responses were decomposed into underlying components, this group exhibited a music-selective component that was very similar in response profile and anatomical distribution to that previously seen in individuals with moderate musical training. We also found that musical genres that were less familiar to our participants (e.g., Balinese gamelan) produced strong responses within the music component, as did drum clips with rhythm but little melody, suggesting that these neural populations are broadly responsive to music as a whole. Our findings demonstrate that the signature properties of neural music selectivity do not require musical training to develop, showing that the music-selective neural populations are a fundamental and widespread property of the human brain.
Why the Brain Enjoys Music
Posted in media & arts, neuroscience
Summary: Interaction between auditory areas of the brain and the reward system drive pleasure when we listen to music.
Source: SfN
Communication between the brain’s auditory and reward circuits is the reason why humans find music rewarding, according to new research published in Journal of Neuroscience.
In comments to City Council last year about APD’s intellectual property enforcement grant, I warned council that one thing I was concerned about was that APD might try to confiscate/remove activist videos by issuing takedown notices for copyrighted music playing in the background of the videos. Looks like I was right to be worried.
In at least three cases, Beverly Hills Cops have started playing music seemingly to prevent themselves from being filmed by an activist.
The Dutch engineer’s invention transformed the way people listened to music in the 20th Century.