Taste in music is based on culture and not biology according to a new study by Prof. Josh McDermott, writes Emily Reynolds for Wired UK. The Tsimane' tribe the researchers surveyed plays music one line at a time, not simultaneously like Western countries, and they had no preference for dissonant and consonant sounds.
Fortune reporter Jeremy Quittner writes about a new study by MIT researchers that examines why women are less likely to get VC funding than men. The researchers found that “women-owned companies do a certain amount of self-sorting into industries that are probably less risky, and so also lack high-growth potential that VCs find most attractive.”
In a BBC News article about the resurgence of bicycling, Kent Larson, director of the Changing Places group, describes the bicycle his group is developing. “You think of the demographic profile of [a] bike rider now as quite limited,” says Larson. “We are working on an electric vehicle that we think of as democratising bike lanes."
CSAIL researchers trained a robot to analyze and make scheduling suggestions in a hospital labor ward, writes Kelsey Atherton for Popular Science. Atherton writes that “by adding in a robot that can analyze scheduling needs, hospitals could make better informed decisions.”
A new study co-authored by Prof. Josh McDermott finds that musical preference may stem from cultural origins, writes Vivian Wang for The Boston Globe. “It raises the possibility that things vary a lot more from culture to culture than people might have wanted to accept,” says McDermott.
A paper co-authored by Prof. Josh McDermott examines the musical preferences of a society with minimal exposure to Western culture, writes Chelsea Leu for Wired. “Maybe an innate bias for consonance exists, but that doesn’t mean every culture develops it,” Leu writes regarding the society’s lack of preference for consonant or dissonant sounds.
By studying how people from different cultures respond to consonant and dissonant chords, MIT researchers have found that musical tastes may be rooted in cultural origins, not biology, writes Sarah Kaplan for The Washington Post. The results “underscore the degree of variation that exists across cultures in terms of how people hear and evaluate music," explains Prof. Josh McDermott.
Atlantic reporter Ed Young writes about a study by MIT researchers that finds musical preferences may be cultural in origin. The researchers examined the musical preferences of remote Amazonian village and found they “don’t care about consonance or dissonance. They can tell the difference between the two kinds of sounds, but they rate both as being equally pleasant.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that culture and not biology may be responsible for our musical tastes, writes Amina Khan for The Los Angeles Times. The researchers found that “people who haven’t been exposed to Western music don’t find certain ‘discordant’ sounds unpleasant at all,” suggesting that musical preferences are not innate.
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. M. Taylor Fravel examines why China is so inflexible when it comes to territorial disputes at sea. “Now that China is stronger,” Fravel writes, “many citizens believe it needs an unchallenged presence in the South China Sea that reflects its perceived status and capabilities.”
An image created by researchers at the Koch Institute that shows red nanoparticles carrying MicroRNAs to an aggressive breast tumor is featured in the National Cancer Institute Cancer Close Up project. Washington Post reporter Laurie McGinley explains that the photographs are intended to spark public interest and encourage young people to consider a career in microbiology.
CNN reporter Sara Ashley O’Brien writes that CSAIL researchers have demonstrated that a robot could help schedule tasks in a hospital’s labor and delivery unit. The researchers trained a robot to understand a nurse’s scheduling decisions and “90% of the time the Nao robot made suggestions that doctors and nurses carried out.”
Research Scientist Caleb Harper speaks with ABC News' Justine Quart about his work developing growing chambers that can be used to cultivate plants around the world. Harper explains that he wanted to “create a tool that other people could use to solve problems. I’m just a tool maker for the next generation of farmers.”
A study conducted by researchers with the Singaore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology examines how coal use could cause water strain in parts of Asia, writes Audrey Tan for The Straits Times. The study’s findings suggest that higher coal use “could suppress rainfall in China, India and across South-east Asia,” explains Tan.
In a Wall Street Journal series examining the roots of America’s current economic disillusionment and how it is impacting the presidential election, Jon Hilsenrath and Bob Davis highlight Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson and Research Scientist Andrew McAfee’s work examining how technology impacts jobs, and Prof. David Autor’s research on how trade with China has affected the U.S. labor market.