Taste the Music

A musician who tastes each chord - literally

When you listen to music, what does it taste like? That's not a silly question. Swiss researchers are studying a young musician who consistently identifies musical intervals by the flavors they induce on her tongue.

For example, a minor second is sour. A major second is bitter. A perfect fourth is mown grass. A minor sixth is cream. An octave has no taste at all. Neuroscientists call such mixed perception synaesthesia. It's a nagging reminder that what we perceive is not just a simple processing of stimuli from one or another of our senses.

Ever since I read The Man Who Tasted Shapes, I've been fascinated with synaesthesia. I'm almost jealous, in fact.

God Bless teh Internets

Why is it so hard to balance in the dark? Someone asked MetaFilter and got an awesome answer:

I spent 10 years post doc working on this very problem. The balancing process is quite complicated, as noted by others above. There is a hierarchy of sensory inputs that are used to maintain one's balance. The most compelling is peripheral vision. In fact, the primary role of the vestibular system (organs of balance) is to stabilize the eyes during head movement so that a steady reference to the horizon is visible (personal discovery).

Ask MeFi is probably my favoroite part of the MetaFilter community simply because of stuff like this.

Cyborg Monkeys Are Here!

Brain controls robot arm in monkey, University of Pittsburgh researcher reports at AAAS

The concept is that, through thought alone, a person could direct a robotic arm – a neural prosthesis – to reach and manipulate a desired object.

As a step toward that goal, University of Pittsburgh researchers report that a monkey outfitted with a child-sized robotic arm controlled directly by its own brain signals is able to feed itself chunks of fruits and vegetables. The researchers trained the monkey to feed itself by using signals from its brain that are passed through tiny electrodes, thinner than a human hair, and fed into a specially designed algorithm that tells the arm how to move.

Um... Holy crap!

Next thing you know, they'll have frickin' LASER beams mounted to their skulls!