news 2013
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Solar panels perform better when listening to music
Lost van Gogh painting validated via canvas weave
Atomic movies reveal 'ultimate spring'
Matching eyes to math for translucent images
Music lessens perceived pain for kids in hospital
Art and Design
Results 1 - 19 of 19.
Art and Design - Pedagogy - 11.12.2013
Muting the Mozart effect
Muting the Mozart effect Contrary to popular opinion, research finds no cognitive benefits to musical training C hildren get plenty of benefits from music lessons. Learning to play instruments can fuel their creativity, and practicing can teach much-needed focus and discipline. And the payoff, whether in learning a new song or just mastering a chord, often boosts self-esteem.
Art and Design - Life Sciences - 18.11.2013
Brain study suggests classical musicians should improvise
Researchers have found that listeners engage with classical music more when musicians improvise. A collaboration of researchers from Imperial College London and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama examined the electrical signals in the brains of musicians and listeners. Although improvisation is not commonly associated with classical music, the new study suggests that introducing elements of improvisation into classical concerts could increase audience engagement.
Life Sciences - Art and Design - 12.11.2013
Monkeys "understand" rules underlying language musicality
Many of us have mixed feelings when remembering painful lessons in German or Latin grammar in school. Languages feature a large number of complex rules and patterns: using them correctly makes the difference between something which "sounds good", and something which does not. However, cognitive biologists at the University of Vienna have shown that sensitivity to very simple structural and melodic patterns does not require much learning, or even being human: South American squirrel monkeys can do it, too.
Art and Design - Physics - 06.11.2013

The sound vibrations that make up music can make solar panels work harder, according to new research, and pop music performs better than classical. Scientists showed that high pitched sounds like those common in pop and rock music caused the greatest improvement in the solar cells' power output, increasing it by up to forty per cent.
Art and Design - History / Archeology - 30.10.2013

Left in an attic and missing for decades, the long-lost Vincent van Gogh painting - "Sunset at Montmajour" - was authenticated by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in September. After a two-year investigation, art historians and researchers identified the work with pinpoint precision, in part, thanks to a technique based on a canvas "weave-map" developed in a Cornell-initiated project.
Physics - Art and Design - 22.10.2013

An international team, including Oxford University scientists, has used the powerful X-ray laser at the US Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to create atomic-scale movies of 'the ultimate spring'. Normally, when a metal is crushed suddenly, as during an impact, it deforms and buckles, with the atoms re-arranging themselves in a complex way to take up the deformed shape - and usually only small pressures allow a metal to 'bounce back' like a spring.
Art and Design - 02.10.2013
Musicians suffering for their art
2 October 2013 Most of Australia's finest musicians are suffering for their art, according to new University of Sydney research. More than 80 percent of 377 professional orchestral musicians surveyed reported having experienced physical pain severe enough to impair their performance. Fifty percent of the musicians reported moderate to severe performance-related anxiety while 32 percent had symptoms of depression.
Art and Design - Computer Science - 30.09.2013

The differences are subtle, but marble, left, scatters light beneath its surface differently than jade, right, in these computer-generated images based on a model of the same statue. Whether it's a rare jade figurine or an ice sculpture, how light passes through a translucent surface is key to its appearance, and humans are sensitive to subtle differences in the result.
Art and Design - Education - 27.09.2013
Involvement in the arts has wide-ranging benefits for young people
27 September 2013 A joint study by the University of Sydney's Faculty of Education and Social Work and the Australian Council for the Arts has found that engagement in the arts benefits students not just in the classroom, but also in life. Students who are involved in the arts have higher school motivation, engagement in class, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, researchers discovered.
Art and Design - Psychology - 11.09.2013
Young adults are fond of their parents' music, too
Music has an uncanny way of bringing us back to a specific point in time, and each generation seems to have its own opinions about which tunes will live on as classics. New research suggests that today's young adults are fond of and have an emotional connection to the music that was popular when their parents were their age in the 1980s.
Art and Design - 22.08.2013
Doing the math 'predicts' which movies will be box office hits
Researchers have devised a mathematical model which can be used to predict whether films will become blockbusters or flops at the box office - up to a month before the movie is released. Their model is based on an analysis of the activity on Wikipedia pages about American films released in 2009 and 2010.
Art and Design - Computer Science - 12.08.2013
More Realistic Simulated Cloth for More Realistic Video Games and Movies
Computer scientists develop new model to simulate cloth on a computer with unprecedented accuracy Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have developed a new model to simulate with unprecedented accuracy on the computer the way cloth and light interact. The new model can be used in animated movies and in video games to make cloth look more realistic.
Art and Design - Health - 15.07.2013

Music may be most helpful for kids more apt to experience pain or distress in pediatric ER, UAlberta researchers find. Newly published findings by medical researchers at the University of Alberta provide more evidence that music decreases children's perceived sense of pain. Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry researcher Lisa Hartling led a research team that involved her colleagues from the Department of Pediatrics, as well as fellow researchers from the University of Manitoba and the United States.
Health - Art and Design - 01.07.2013
Improving community health and well-being
A new research project led by the School of Social Sciences will use creative arts practices to help inform health-related policy and service development. Funded jointly by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the 'Representing Communities' project, will use innovative research techniques to promote engagement between communities and policy makers.
Art and Design - Psychology - 11.06.2013
Perfect pitch may not be absolute after all
People who think they have perfect pitch may not be as in tune as they think, according to a new University of Chicago study in which people failed to notice a gradual change in pitch while listening to music. When tested afterward, people with perfect, or absolute pitch, thought notes made out of tune at the end of a song were in tune, while notes that were in tune at the beginning sounded out of tune.
Art and Design - 06.06.2013
Research on 1,000 paintings makes hundreds of new discoveries
New research and detailed records of over 1,000 paintings have gone online as part of an ongoing project to research over 22,000 artworks held in public collections around the UK. The National Inventory of Continental European Paintings (NICE Paintings) project is cataloguing and digitising all of the pre-1900 Continental European oil paintings in the UK's public collections and making them available to the public, alongside new supporting information.
Art and Design - 09.05.2013
Perfect harmony: Is singing ability in twins inherited?
To participant in the study visit www.twins.org.au Email or freecall (Aus only) 1800-037-021. For media inquiries only Rebecca Scott 0417 164 791 A world-first study will investigate if singing ability is inherited in twins. Led by the University of Melbourne with the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and the Australian Twin Registry, the study will explore if it is nature or nurture that most influences whether we can sing a pitch-perfect tune.
Art and Design - Health - 27.03.2013
Major health benefits of music uncovered in first large-scale review
In the first large-scale review of 400 research papers in the neurochemistry of music, a team led by Prof. Daniel J. Levitin of McGill University's Psychology Dept. has been able to show that playing and listening to music has clear benefits for both mental and physical health. In particular, music was found both to improve the body's immune system function and to reduce levels of stress.
Art and Design - 14.02.2013
Love of musical harmony is not nature but nurture
Our love of music and appreciation of musical harmony is learnt and not based on natural ability - a new study by University of Melbourne researchers has found.
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