Music helps us get through hard, physical work. Think of the songs produced by soldiers marching or chain gangs building railroads.
But does simply hearing the music account for the effect? Or is there a bigger boost when the workers themselves make the music?
To find out, scientists had subjects exercise on a fitness machine under two conditions. In one trial, the volunteers just listened to music. In the second run, the machines were rigged to start playing music only when the participant began to move. And the pace at which the subject exercised determined the speed of the music.
Measurements of the participants’ oxygen intake and muscle tension showed that they actually expended less energy when they controlled the music. The participants also rated their perceived level of exertion as being lower when their actions dictated the sound. The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
So next time you’re working the elliptical at the gym, perhaps make your own music. You could simply sing along to whatever’s playing on the loudspeakers. Unless it’s Blurred Lines. Work it. Don’t twerk it.
Top Shot For "Ender's Game"
Despite months of mixed buzz, little star power outside of Harrison Ford in a supporting role, and controversy of author Orson Scott Card’s anti-gay (and vaguely racist) political views, Lionsgate’s Ender’s Game debuted with solid opening day numbers. Mostly financed by OddLot, the $110 million adaptation of Card’s acclaimed and much-celebrated sci-fi novel from 1985 earned a decent $9 million on its first Friday. That’s over/under what The Host ($10.6m),Beautiful Creatures ($7.5m), and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones($9.3m) earned over their entire respective Fri-Sun debut weekends.
Barring massive front-loading and/or a crash-and-burn over the next few weeks, this should somewhat reverse the trend of failing young adult fantasy literary adaptations post-Hunger Games. Presuming a somewhat anticipated but not horribly front loaded debut weekend (think 2.75x), expect an opening weekend of just over/under $27 million. So it’s playing like Eragon and The Golden Compass thus far (around $28m debut/$70-$75m domestic finish), for better or worse.
The next new wide release is CBS Film’s Last Vegas. The Sin City-set comedy centers around four old friends who reunite in Vegas for one last bachelor party and it stars Robert De Niro, Kevin Kline, Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, and Mary Steenburgen. The film wisely cost just $28 million to produce, so its $5.1 million opening day, setting the stage for a $14 million debut weekend, will lead to easy profitability, as the film’s target older audience checks out the film when they find it convenient rather than rushing out on opening weekend.
Street Art Take Over
Libreville (AFP) - Fed up with the overpowering stench of urine in Libreville's streets, artist Regis Divassa decided to take action -- by spray-painting over soiled walls in a bid to get the Gabonese capital's residents to keep their city clean.
"Gabonese men have a great habit, once they drink too much, they spray the walls," said the 34-year-old artist.
Not only are hidden street corners used as make-shift toilets, even walls of residential homes are hit.
If it is understandable to go behind a tree in a rural setting where it might be hard to find a toilet, in Libreville, an urban city of about half a million people, the habit is causing anguish among residents.
Eugenie Assoumou Mengue knows what it is like to live in a house which has walls that are regularly sprayed.
"We're suffering, it's hellish. People come and urinate here and we get the smells that make us really sick," she said, indicating an area on her walls where cement was flaking off.
Divassa, an artist, cinema set designer and rap artist, has teamed up with his partner "Blatino" to target areas in Libreville that are thick with filth, spraying slogans or full-fledged frescoes to get people to stop think twice.
"Graffiti is like a picture. If people see something beautiful on the wall, they won't come and pee against it," said Divassa. "Street art is something young people appreciate."
For Divassa, street art is a political act, a kind of rebellion that can serve to raise public awareness about not just the toilet issue, but also the general filth problem plaguing Libreville.
Besides the struggle to get people to use toilets, uncleared waste has also become a bugbear for Libreville's citizens and regularly hits the national headlines.
In nearly every neighbourhood in the city, piles of rubbish can be seen rising metres high up near bins that no one empties, stewing under suffocating heat and emitting putrid smells.
The rubbish "even holds up the traffic because it overflows onto the road and cars can't get past," said one shoe seller from his tiny shop.
"The town hall has to do something," he said. Each month he pays a cleanliness tax of 24,000 FCFA ($50) "without knowing what it's for."
Another shopkeeper who came to greet Regis said he was disgusted by the rubbish lining the streets outside his food store.
"We can't breathe anymore. The bins are never emptied and with heavy rainfall it overflows through the whole city and makes people sick."
Libreville's unpopular mayor Jean-Francois Ntoutoume Emane, who will not run again in the November elections, is facing widespread criticism and blamed for not honouring his engagements with the organisation responsible for collecting household waste.
Responding recently to questions from deputies and senators, the mayor acknowledged that the rubbish issue is a recurring one, but he refused to shoulder the blame.
Faced with political inaction, Divassa hopes that his street art around the city will help raise public awareness and help to turn the situation around.
"All this is the state's fault. But who is the state? The state is you and me. The state is us."
What's New In COD:G
Arriving November 5 for current consoles and PCs (it’s a launch day release for both the PS4 and Xbox One), Call of Duty: Ghosts is expected to be one of the year’s biggest earners. But you knew that already.
For the past several years, Call of Duty releases have dominated charts while repeatedly breaking their own sales records. That might not come quite as easily this year thanks to the epic performance of Grand Theft Auto V, but it’s a given that Call of Duty: Ghosts will put up one helluva fight.
So what’s new in this year’s model? Here are five things coming to Ghosts that you’ve yet to see in a Call of Duty game.
Soldier’s best friend
Cats might rule the internet, but one very special dog rules Call of Duty: Ghosts. His name is Riley, and he was a star from the moment Activision first showed off the game.
Bred to assist players in both solo and multiplayer, the German Shepherd carries an assortment of tactical help, including a back-mounted camera and large, pointy teeth. He’s true to life, too, built using the same motion-capture tech as his human companions, though we’re not sure any of them are brave enough to leap onto a helicopter and bite the pilot, as Riley did in one of the game’s more memorable trailers.
Of course, having a high-profile dog in a game about shooting things begs the question: will Riley survive the tale? Developer Infinity Ward isn’t saying, but with nearly 30,000 Twitter followers, Riley’s legion of fans would never let them hear the end of it if the pooch perished.
Out with the dead, in with the aliens
Burnt out on the undead? So is Infinity Ward, who decided to jettison Call of Duty’s long-running Zombies mode in favor of something a little more…foreign.
That would be the game’s new Extinction mode, which tasks teams of four to defend a base against hordes of bug-like alien invaders. Though the core gameplay looks pretty similar to Zombies, it adds flavor with unlockable classes, scavenging for items, team-based skill points, and power-ups specific to Extinction. A little bit of Halo in your Call of Duty, perhaps?
Answer the call, on the go
Second-screen gaming is all the rage these days, but like pretty much everything else with Call of Duty, Ghosts goes bigger than most with its off-screen antics. The Call of Duty app for phones and tablets ties into Ghosts in all sorts of ways, from obvious extensions like the ability to track stats and gameplay history to more functional bits like customizing loadouts before and during matches.
It also enables cross-platform clans -- another first for the franchise -- which essentially lets players join the same clan even if they’re on different gaming systems. A new ‘Clan Wars’ game mode even lets you fight other clans through the app, which also nets XP for the main game.
Girl power
Ten years after the first game in the series launched, Call of Duty is finally breaching the gender gap.
Call of Duty: Ghosts is the first game in the franchise to feature full soldier customization, letting players tweak every aspect of their virtual hero’s look – including gender. It’s an issue that’s dogged the series for years, though Infinity Ward insists it comes down to technology. Past games didn’t feature any player customization due to the sheer scope of its multiplayer. Once the tech enabled customization, they say, gender was an obvious addition.
“Our fan base is huge,” executive producer Mark Rubin told Kotaku back in August. “We cover such a dramatic range of people who play our game that we wanted to be as inclusive as we possibly could with character customization. And that's where the idea came from. Why wouldn't we have a female [option] then?"
Squads
If playing solo isn’t your thing and getting torched in multiplayer is proving a drag, you can opt for Ghosts’ third mode of play: Squads.
Players can customize AI-controlled squads of up to five soldiers, then hop into a variety of competitive, cooperative, and survival match types against other players and their squads. Your customized squad can even fight for you -- and earn XP -- when you’re offline. Best of all, any XP you gain in Squad mode goes towards your multiplayer rank, which could prove to be a smoother entry point for gamers intimidated by online play.
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