A new study conducted in Switzerland confirms that music can do much more than make us dream and calm our senses: the right songs can help to enhance the neurological development of premature babies . We are talking about children born before the 32nd week of pregnancy who, thanks to medical advances, today have a good chance of survival, but who find themselves fighting with the risk of developing neuropsychological (even serious) disorders.
To help the brains of these fragile newborns develop as well as possible - despite the stressful environment of intensive care - researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) have proposed an original solution: music written specifically for them . The first results of this sweet therapy have been published in the Acts of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the United States and are surprising: medical imaging reveals that neural networks - in particular a network involved in many sensory and cognitive functions - of premature babies who listened to that precise melody developed much better .
Every year, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the HUG accommodates 80 children born too early - between 24 and 32 weeks of pregnancy, which is almost four months ahead of schedule in some cases. The vast majority survive, but half of them later develop neuro-evolutionary disorders - aliases: learning difficulties, attention or emotional disorders. As Petra Hüppi, professor at the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine and Head of the Development and Growth Division of HUG, explains: "At birth, the brains of these children are still immature. Brain developmenthe must therefore continue in the intensive care unit, in an incubator, in very different conditions than when they were still in the womb. The immaturity of the brain, combined with a disturbing sensory environment, explains why neural networks do not develop normally ”.
The Geneva researchers have decided to rely on music starting from a practical idea: as the neural deficits of premature babies are due - at least in part - to unexpected and stressful stimuli (such as the birth before time), but also to the lack of stimuli adapted to their conditions, their environment should be enriched by introducing pleasant elements and well-studied stimuli. Since hearing - generally - works from the beginning, music seems to be the perfect ally to deal with the problem. Which music are we talking about, exactly? "Fortunately, we met the composer Andreas Vollenweider who had already directed musical projects for special situations and showed great interest in creating music suitable for premature babies," explained Hüppi.
Lara Lordier, a doctor in neuroscience and researcher at the HUG and UNIGE, described the process of musical creation as follows: "It was important that these musical stimuli were related to the child's condition. We wanted to structure the day with pleasant stimuli in the appropriate moments: a music to accompany their awakening, a music to accompany their falling asleep and a music to interact during the phases of awakening ". The right tool is everything: Vollenweider has played several in the presence of a nurse specializing in development support to understand which were the most appreciated by young patients, and “The instrument that generated most of the reactions was the flute of Indian snake charmers (punji). The very agitated children calmed down almost instantly - their attention was drawn to the music! ", Lordier told Good News. The musician then composed three sound tracks about eight minutes long each playing punji, the harp and some bells.
The study was conducted with a group of premature babies who listened to music, a control group of premature babies and a full-term control group of newborns to assess whether the brain development of the premature babies who had listened to the music would have been more similar to that of term children. Scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging at rest on all three groups of children. Long story short, premature babies without music generally had poorer functional connectivity between brain areas than full-term children, confirming the negative effect of prematurity: "The network most affected is the salience networkthat detects the information and assesses its relevance at a specific time, then creates the connection with the other brain networks that must act. This network is essential, both for learning and performing cognitive tasks, as well as in social relationships or emotional management, "confirmed Lara Lordier.
"In intensive care, children are overwhelmed by stimuli unrelated to their condition: open and closed doors, alarms activated and so on. Unlike a child born in time who, in utero, regulates his rhythm to that of his mother , the premature child in intensive care can hardly develop the link between the meaning of a stimulus in a specific context ". However, the neural networks of the children who listened to the music of Andreas Vollenweider improved significantly: the functional connectivity between the salience network and the auditory, sensorimotor, frontal, thalamic and precuneus networks is actually increased - obtaining a network organization more similar to full-term babies.
In short, music is (really) much more than a background for our days, cheers!
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The big day has arrived for Rock Music fans on Apple Music and Spotify
The big day has finally arrived. After the announcement of a few days ago , the discography of the Tool debuts today on the main streaming music platforms . The songs of Maynard's alternative metal group James Keenan are in fact available for listening on Apple Music, Spotify and the like .
An important change for the entire sector, as until now the Tool had been reluctant to the idea. As a result, fans were forced to use YouTube to listen to the tracks.
The publication of the entire Tool discography comes a few days after the publication of the new album "Fear Incolum", arriving on August 30th .
Other important artists initially opposed to uploading their music to streaming platforms, including Metallica, AC / DC, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, but the increased use by users, and the popularity of the applications, he practically forced them to embrace new technologies.
An important change for the entire sector, as until now the Tool had been reluctant to the idea. As a result, fans were forced to use YouTube to listen to the tracks.
The publication of the entire Tool discography comes a few days after the publication of the new album "Fear Incolum", arriving on August 30th .
Other important artists initially opposed to uploading their music to streaming platforms, including Metallica, AC / DC, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, but the increased use by users, and the popularity of the applications, he practically forced them to embrace new technologies.
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Launch of Apple Music Worldwide on Alexa, Amazon Echo and Fire TV Devices Outside US
Apple Music , the music and video streaming service of the Cupertino company, integrates with the speakers with Amazon's voice assistant Alexa, including Amazon Echo speakers thanks to the official ' Apple Music ' skill available from the week of December 17, 2018, initially only in the United States . An important innovation, considering that Apple Music was first available on smart speakers only on Sonos and Apple HomePod (which is not for sale in Italy). Apple Music is not available on Google Home, nor is it compatible with Google Cast technology. And starting March 14, 2019, Apple Music is now also available on Amazon Fire TV, Amazon's platform for televisions, set-top boxes and HDMI keys. Also in this case the support is currently limited only in the USA, where it is now possible to ask Alexa to listen to music from Apple Music via Fire TV, in streaming.
The integration of Appla Music with Alexa was officially announced by Amazon via Alexa's blog a few weeks after its debut: "Music has always been one of Alexa's most popular features and today we are pleased to announce that Apple Music will be available on Echo devices starting from the week of December 17 [2018] ".
The integration of Apple Music with Alexa is available only in the United States and not in all countries where Alexa and Apple Music are available, including Italy. The same happened with TIDAL, arrived on Amazon Echo only in the USA (but destined to arrive soon in other countries too). Apple Music should soon be available through Alexa also in the UK .
"Music is one of the most popular features on Alexa: since we launched Alexa four years ago, customers are listening to more music in their homes than ever before," said Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon Devices. "We are committed to offering great music suppliers to our customers and since the launch of the Music Skill API to developers only last month we have expanded the music selection on Alexa to include even more high-level services. We are excited to bring Apple Music one of the most popular music services in the United States, to Echo's customers for the upcoming holidays. "
Subscribers to Apple Music in the United States can thus listen to the entire catalog of 50 million songs from Apple Music on all Echo and Fire TV devices, as well as on the smart speakers that integrate Alexa. Apple Music customers can ask Alexa to play their favorite songs, artists and albums or playlists created by Apple Music publishers around the world, covering many activities and moods. Apple Music subscribers can also ask Alexa to stream specialized radio stations on popular genres such as Hip-Hop, decades like the 80s and even popular music from around the world, like K-Pop. It's still,
In the Amazon Alexa blog it has been reported that Alexa users appreciate the simplicity and ease of asking Alexa for the content they want to hear, things that have brought more music into their homes. It turns out that users ask Alexa to play all kinds of music in many different languages, stream tens of millions of radio hours a month and set tens of millions of music alarms since the feature was launched a little more a year ago.
Activate Apple Music with Alexa .
From the week of December 17, 2018, in the United States you can enable Apple Music on your Amazon Alexa account by accessing the Amazon Alexa app on your mobile or in a browser, then searching the skill store for the 'Apple Music' skill (or you can find it in the category 'musical skills') and pressing on 'Activate' to start the configuration that requires the insertion of username and password of your Apple Music account to be connected to Alexa. It is then possible to set 'Apple Music' as the default music streaming service in the music preferences in the Alexa app: in this way when you ask Alexa for the music to be played it is not necessary to specify 'from Apple Music' every time at the end of the phrase.
Apple Music works with Alexa only if an Apple Music subscription is active: the monthly cost is 9.99 euros per month for a single account, while the 'family' subscription costs 14.99 euros for up to six accounts; students can take advantage of a 50% discount by paying € 4.99 a month. If you have never subscribed to Apple Music, the first three months are free, after which you can continue your subscription or deactivate the service.
What Apple is Doing to improve Apple Music Playlists
Apple hires artists to make Playlist covers on Apple Music. The change will take place in the coming months.
Apple has always been attentive to the smallest details of the graphical interface of its operating system and within its apps. Apparently he is trying, albeit quietly, to visually improve Apple Music, hiring artists to create covers for music playlists, so as to make the music service even more unique.
Although Apple Music is not (yet) a record label, the company's goal is to create iconic covers for their playlists, so that they are instantly recognizable, already visually. This is why the company has recruited several artists, such as the creator of the iconic AC / DC logo.
Before today, Apple's playlists have enjoyed a uniform presentation, not necessarily related to the type of music of the songs contained within the individual lists. With custom covers, instead, you will have a visual representation of the music that the user will find within that playlist. This is the thought of Rachel Newman, head of Apple publishing.
The graphic novelty explainsTheVerge will be launched over the next few months. The company plans to redesign several thousand covers, while currently it would have been able to redesign only hundreds of covers. This shows how over the years Apple has not lost that attention to detail, which is also necessary to compete in a field such as streaming music, where rivals are not lacking, Spotify above all.
Among the artists who will work on the new covers also the Macedonian Italian Stole "Moab" Stojmenov, graphic designer who designed the cover for the Migos Culture album, and which for Apple will take care of the album "Hits Hip Hop".
I wonder if Apple will announce these graphic changes already on March 25th , on the occasion of the much talked about event in which it will also present its new services for publishing and video streaming.
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