Science Mysteries, Explained
PopSci's answers life's burning scientific questions
Q: Why do cellphones turn people into such crummy drivers?
A: Activities such as driving and being aware of your surroundings (a.k.a. "not being a jerk") have a few things in common: Both are complicated tasks that require the brain's full attention, and both are often sidelined as we overwhelm our frontal lobes' processing power with the ultra-distracting cellphone.
"Multitasking" is a term that originally referred to a computer's ability to execute several commands concurrently. Naturally, we assume our brains can do the same thing. But many researchers agree that our alleged modern ability for gaming, downloading, texting, and talking simultaneously is just a myth. Technically, our big human brains can't even do two things at the same time without paying a price.
The multitasking myth, says cognitive researcher Jordan Grafman of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, stems from the ability of part of the frontal lobe to toggle back and forth among simple tasks in as little as a few hundred milliseconds and among complex tasks in only a few seconds. It may seem like doing two things at once, but even these tiny lapses create delayed response times that can lead to car accidents. What's more, Grafman says, the frontal lobe is also responsible for your ability to observe and reflect on your surroundings. Cellphones degrade this ability because of their extra demand on your brain (which probably explains why people on the street bray into their phones, despite your giving them the evil eye). Finally, according to a recent University of Utah study, phoning while driving doubles the likelihood of rear-ending the car in front of you, even if you're using a hands-free headset - the lack of visual cues, compared with just speaking to a passenger, is too taxing.
Q: Do music lessons make kids smarter?
A: Several studies published in the past few years involving children ages four to 15 have strengthened the theory that music lessons have a positive effect on kids' brains. The first, by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, looked at 90 boys between the ages of six and 15; half were in the school's string orchestra, and the rest had no musical training. Another study, by the University of Toronto, enlisted 144 six-year-olds and randomly assigned them to a year of piano lessons, voice coaching or nothing. The researchers discovered that lessons on a musical instrument can boost mathematic ability and overall IQ. Unsurprisingly, the longer a student sticks with it, the greater those improvements.
Most recently, scientists at McMaster University and the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto revealed that as little as four months of music lessons cause noticeable improve- ments during brain development. The study followed a handful of four- to six-year-old aspiring musicians over the course of a year, measuring patterns of neuronal activity in each participant's brain. When the scientists compared the young Mozarts with a control group, they found that music students' brains were developing differently. For example, instruction improved an information-processing area of the brain associated with attention. Unlike their peers, the nascent musicians' general memory capacity (measured by how easily subjects could memorize strings of numbers) increased over the course of the year.
Before you start kicking yourself for having given up the tuba, take comfort: Even quitters reap some benefits. Studies have shown that instead of losing their abilities wholesale, children who stopped their lessons retain some of the skills engendered by their musical training.
Q: Why do mosquitoes seem drawn to me like bees to watermelon, while they couldn't care less about my wife?
A: There's some uncertainty about the je ne sais quoi that makes one person more appetizing than the next to a blood-hungry insect - but the "favorites" phenomenon is more than suburban legend.
