Infants are not famous for being skilled consumers or producers of music. This study suggests that that lack of fame is justified for 28 of 30 babies: “Precursors of Dancing and Singing to Music in Three- to Four-Months-Old Infants,” Shinya Fujii [pictured here], Hama Watanabe, Hiroki Oohashi, Masaya Hirashima, Daichi Nozaki, Gentaro Taga, PLoS ONE, 9(5), 2014, […]
Tag: dance
Tap dancing and the Osgood-Schlatter syndrome
Following on from a recent Improbable note which highlit research into Lower Extremity Kinetics in Tap Dancers, we can suggest to readers that just about any* kind of occupation or professional activity has the potential to cause discomfort and/or injury of some kind – and tap dancing is no exception. Despite its long history, however, it […]
Lower Extremity Kinetics in Tap Dance
For the first time, Improbable can draw attention to an experimentally verified investigation into ‘Lower Extremity Kinetics in Tap Dance’ (in: Journal of Dance Medicine & Science, Volume 14, Number 1, March 2010 , pp. 3-10(8)) Investigators Lester Mayers, M.D., Shaw Bronner, P.T., Ph.D., O.C.S., Sujani Agraharasamakulam, M.S., and Sheyi Ojofeitimi, M.P.T. asked six professional […]
Ballet Dancers doing splits in an MRI scanner [hip study]
Quite a number of professional ballet dancers suffer from medical conditions brought about by their requirement to perform very extreme leg movements. To accurately evaluate such problems physicians would, ideally, like to be able to carry out MRI scans of ballet dancers whilst performing the splits. [that’s the dancers, not the physicians] And, impractical as […]
Gumboot Dancing studies (in French)
Some may find the Gumboot Dancing traditions of South Africa to be paradoxical. Take for example Professor Bernard Cros of Le département d’études anglophones de l’UFR de langues et cultures étrangères de l’Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense (Paris X) who writes, in Cultures of the Commonwealth, No. 13, Winter 2006/2007 [in French] Etrange destin […]
Crane Dances as Play Behavior
Question: Which of the three individuals in this photo is officially listed as an author of the study “Crane Dances as Play Behavior,” [Ibis, vol. 155, 2013, pp. 424-425]? ANSWER: Vladimir Dinets, the one in the middle. BONUS: His new understanding of crocodiles and alligators.
Dance Your Ph.D.: The 2013 winners, and one that was not chosen
The Dance Your Dissertation competition announced its new winners. John Bohannon, who created and oversees the event, gives details at the Science Now web site. The grand winner is: Cedric Tan, a biologist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who finished his Ph.D. there last year with a thesis titled “Sperm competition between […]
Samuel Beckett meets the Teletubbies
Was the creation of the Teletubbies (1997) inspired by the work of Nobel Prize winning avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, Samuel Beckett? Specifically, his plays Quad I + II ? (1981) Univ.-Prof. Dr. Eckart Voigts-Virchow of the University of Siegen, Germany, draws attention to possible similarities (and possible differences) in his paper for […]
Robots and humans interact – part 2 of 3
Improbable continues its look at the RO-MAN Workshop 2012. – the 21st IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, which was held September 9-13, Paris, France. Part 2 : Change the music and dance There are robots which attempt to dance, there are robots which attempt to speak, and there are robots which […]
“Shiny Robot” — A percussive video experience
“The essence of my computational-acoustics dissertation can be boiled down to trying to teach a computer to hear percussion in music like a human. Having a human, Alain Rouvez, teach a robot, Shiny Robot, how to dance seemed like the perfect metaphor,” writes Anderson Mills in describing the video he submitted to the most recent […]