Question: Is there a reason we blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, and why don’t we use a trumpet or some other instrument? I know it’s traditional, but is there a reason that the shofar is so special?–James, Salt Lake CityAnswer: Well, I don’t want to toot the shofar’s horn too much, James, but it really is pretty special. Allow me to explain.In the Torah, we’re given a commandment that on the first day of the seventh month (Tishrei) “you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion

What is echolocation? Echolocation is a technique used by bats, dolphins and other animals to determine the location of objects using reflected sound. This allows the animals to move around in pitch darkness, so they can navigate, hunt, identify friends

Everything in this Universe, including you is vibrating at a frequency. This is because you and everything around you is energy.The energy of the Earth vibrates at a 528Hz frequency which is the same frequency as Love, the Universal Healer. The frequency of 528Hz is believed to be so powerful that it can help repair and restore DNA damage, bring peace and harmony and restore equilibrium to everything around it. Talk about good vibrations! 528Hz is the sound of Love however, there are many

Data from individuals with different types of severe visual impairment suggest that the associations we make between sounds and shapes — a “smooth” b or a “spiky” k — may form during a sensitive period of visual development in early childhood. The findings are published in Psychological Science.“In congenitally blind participants, as well as in participants with a history of congenital or childhood developmental cataracts, we found no evidence of reliable sound-shape associations,” says lead

Pains that we experience are caused by mental processes that can be affected by thoughts and emotions. Scientists still don't now everything about the connection between processes in the mind and the body but what we are certain is that the brain, attitudes and emotions influence the way physical pain is experienced.For example, meditation is good for pain relief as it lowers brain activity in your primary somatosensory cortex, which creates the sense of a location and intensity of a painful

Calm your infant or child by talking or singing to them cheek to cheek!The voice is perceived by two of our senses, our aural sense and our sense of touch. Within the womb, unborn children sense their mother’s voice as vibrations of soothing sound. When the mother vocalizes the child feels sound waves moving through the womb. Making the transition from sound as vibration to sound as an aural experience happens at birth, which is a startling experience. According to voice scientist Ingo Titze

Chinese researchers report even a few moments of opera produce a thoughtful, empathetic response.“Music,” Ludwig van Beethoven argued,” is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.” The assertion seems reasonable enough if you consider his late string quartets, but it’s absurd if your reference point is the collected works of Justin Bieber. So — at risk of sounding elitist — are artistic and popular music fundamentally different? New research from China suggests they are, at least in

Perhaps you’ve had this feeling when everything seems like it’s too much. Sometimes there are days, weeks, months and even years when getting through the day, doing your job or getting out of bed feels unbearable for no particular reason. It might be due to anxiety, depression or another mental illness. It might be due to a physical or mental distress. It might be because you broke up with the love of your life. It might be because you are in grief. It might be for no vivid reason as well – you

Only six people in the world know how to do what Sergio Pacheco is about to do.A middle-aged man who rarely smiles, Pacheco stands in the middle of a crowd on the National Mall, wearing a feathered headdress, beaded necklace and wrinkled dress that's been hand painted with a large, maroon bird on the front. "What I'm about to show you is the way we heal in my community," Pacheco says in his native language, Harakmbut, while a translator quickly interprets. "If someone has faith, they will

With the help of the psychedelic drug LSD, researchers now have an understanding of how our brains attribute meaning to things in our lives, like music or particular experiences. The findings are published in a Current Biology study.Katrin Preller and colleagues asked participants to take a placebo, LSD, or LSD plus ketanserin, a drug that counteracts LSD’s effects by blocking a specific receptor. The participants then ranked the meaningfulness a series of songs they had previously identified

Riitta Excell wore a pair of homemade wool socks: white with red floral patterns and rounded blue toes. Around her were women sipping tea and enjoying plum pastries and chicken feta pie. They wore homemade wool socks, as well.It was nearly 3 o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, and Pirkko Fihlman’s living room on the outskirts of Helsinki was filled with black-and-white family photos, porcelain figurines of angels and birds, and embroidered rococo chairs. The clink of tea cups fell silent, and then