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“Bodily maps of musical sensations across cultures”


Emotions, bodily sensations and movement are integral parts of musical experiences. Yet, it remains unknown i) whether emotional connotations and structural features of music elicit discrete bodily sensations and ii) whether these sensations are culturally consistent. We addressed these questions in a cross-cultural study with Western (European and North American, n = 903) and East Asian (Chinese, n = 1035). We precented participants with silhouettes of human bodies and asked them to indicate the bodily regions whose activity they felt changing while listening to Western and Asian musical pieces with varying emotional and acoustic qualities. The resulting bodily sensation maps (BSMs) varied as a function of the emotional qualities of the songs, particularly in the limb, chest, and head regions.

Scientists identified 18 new Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs), instances where a nearby black hole violently tears apart a neighboring star.

The powerful gravitational force of the black holes rips apart the star in its vicinity, resulting in a substantial release of energy across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

The new catalog of TDEs was found by combing through the archival data of the satellite telescope NEOWISE. The team identified infrared patterns associated with these intense, transient bursts using a novel algorithm.