Why are some popular musical forms and performers universally reviled by critics and ignored by scholars-despite enjoying large-scale popularity? How has the notion of what makes "good" or "bad" music changed over the years-and what does this tell us about the writers who have assigned these tags to different musical genres? Many composers that are today part of the classical "canon" were greeted initially by bad reviews. Similarly, jazz, country, and pop musics were all once rejected as "bad" by the (...) academy that now has courses on these and many other types of music. This book addresses why this is so through a series of essays on different musical forms and performers. It looks at alternate ways of judging musical performance beyond the critical/academic nexus, and suggests new paths to follow in understanding what makes some music "popular" even if it is judged to be "bad." For anyone who has ever secretly enjoyed ABBA, Kenny G, or disco, Bad Music will be a guilty pleasure! (shrink)

What is the biological basis for human cognition? Our understanding why human brains make us smarter than other animals is still in its infancy. In recent years, astrocytes have been shown to be indispensable for neuronal survival, growth, synapse formation, and synapse function. Now, in a new study from Maiken Nedergaard and Steven Goldman's groups (Han et al., 2013), human glia progenitor cells have been transplanted into mouse forebrains. These progenitors survived, migrated widely, and gave rise to astrocytes that (...) displayed the characteristics of human astrocytes in the rodent host brains. Strikingly, the mice with transplanted human cells displayed improved long term potentiation (LTP) and learning, suggesting the potential importance of human astrocytes in the unique cognitive abilities of human brains. This landmark paper is an important first step toward future investigations of whether and how human astrocytes play a role in distinguishing the cognitive abilities of humans from those of other animals. (shrink)