Great article on the research of musics effect on the mind-body: enough time has passed to prove that the study of the brain on music yields beneficial results. Improvements in childhood education and mitigation of certain brain and body disorders are among the benefits. The goal of the field is also clear now: to study what makes us human so we can better understand each other and the world.
Musicians have better hearing late in life
Music training “fine-tunes” the nervous system, according to Professor Nina Kraus. Sound is the stock in trade of the musician in much the same way that a painter of portraits is keenly attuned to the visual attributes of the paint that will convey his or her subject.”
“If the materials that you work with are sound, then it is reasonable to suppose that all of your faculties involved with taking it in, holding it in memory and relating physically to it should be sharpened,” Kraus adds. “Music experience bolsters the elements that combat age-related communication problems.”
Nina Kraus, professor of neurobiology and physiology at Northwestern University and co-author of the study published recently in the journal PLoS One.
Tears are not just made of salt water. The tear film can be thought of as a three-layer sandwich. There’s “mucin” on the bottom, salt water in the middle, and a layer of “lipid” on the top. All three layers have to work properly to protect and moisturize your eye.
The mucin layer contains mucous that forms a bond between the salt water and the front surface of the eye. The mucin layer stabilizes the tear film and prevents bacteria and debris from adhering to the eye.
The salt water, or aqueous layer, contains much more than salt and water. It also has proteins such as immunoglobulins, that help prevent infections, and lysozyme that digests harmful proteins secreted by bacteria.
The fat and oil layer, or lipids, help prevent evaporation of the tear film and increase spreadability of the tear film. A healthy lipid layer also prevents mechanical irritation from the eyelids as you blink.
Blinking to spread the tears, compare your eyelids to windshield wipers that spread the tear film evenly over the surface of the eye.
