Stories by Princess Ojiaku

I’ve been running around Washington DC for the past couple of days, walking from poster to poster wrapping my brain around the latest research in neuroscience and music, then doing some of my own “field research” by checking out a couple of rock shows in DC.

It’s no secret that Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of my favorite astrophysicists. So when I saw this morning that he was featured in the latest Symphony of Science video (along with Brian Cox and Carolyn Porco), I was overjoyed.

The time has finally come for the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting. Over 31,000 neuroscientists are going to descend on Washington DC starting this weekend, and your fearless blogger will be one of them!

Carolyn McGettigan is a researcher at University College London who studies the neural mechanisms of speech and production. So it was only natural that she teamed up with UK Beatbox champion Reeps One to uncover the mysteries behind his skill at producing percussion sounds with his mouth.

Go back to the past. You’re a teenager hovered over the liner notes of a cherished new album. Or perhaps your eyes are closed to better absorb all the auditory sensations and to make sure to take in every word and phase to aid later recitation in the dark.

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, on which people share how women have influenced them to become who they are today. I’m participating in this by highlighting my undergraduate research advisor, Dr.

Saul Perlmutter is one of three scientists awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics this morning. This news is exciting enough, but Perlmutter is no ordinary Nobel Laureate.

A little over a year ago when I decided to start interviewing scientists who also played music on Science with Moxie, I stumbled across the blog Musicians and Scientists, written by Eva Amsen.

Jad Abumrad is a genius. I always suspected as much, but it’s always nice to have your suspicions verified by outside sources. Last week, I felt a sort of vicarious and visceral sort of pure joy at hearing that he had been awarded a genius grant by the MacArthur Foundation for his work on the [...]

I recently had the privilege of visiting Splatspace, which is my town’s own little hackerspace in the middle of downtown. I met some passionate people doing amazing things with music and electronics, which reminded me of the first person I interviewed for SwM as a part of my effort to put the spotlight on people [...]

I ran across this extremely well-done video on the science of sound, frequencies, and pitch via the lovely people on my Twitter feed. This video is an excellent, fun, and engaging explanation of how sounds change from vibrations in the air to things our brains can perceive and interpret.

My interview with Zoe Cormier of Guerilla Science plus the use of galvanic skin response machines at the World Science Festival got me thinking about this post from the archives of SwM that details a study on feeling chills while listening to music.

As this lovely post by Olivia Koski on the SA Incubator blog details, last weekend science went Guerilla in the United States. Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips standing with a giant brain that Guerilla Science placed at the Green Man festival.

I’ve spent the past week fascinated with the buzz surrounding the forthcoming album from Bjork, Biophilia. One very unique thing about this new album is the theme of science, nature, technology, and music that surround each song.

Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus, a program from the 2009 World Science Festival If you’re like me, you follow World Science Festival on Twitter and constantly marvel at the new videos they add from prior festivals.

The brain is an amazing organ. It gives us conscious control over our actions and is the seat of our thoughts and experiences. There are millions of things in our environment that enter our world everyday, but only a few of them get past the steely discrimination of our perception.

Hi! I’m Princess, and I’m extremely honored to make Science with Moxie a part of the Scientific American blogging network. I started this blog in 2009 on a bit of a whim and out a lot of admiration for the science blogosphere.