Stuttering

• Whether or not you’re a musician, somehow you know intuitively when to speed up or slow down to stay in time.
• A wide range of living and non-living systems show synchronization, the tendency to coordinate rhythmic activity across interconnected groups.
• And as a scientist, I am fascinated by the processes in the mind and brain that allow us to interact so expertly and spontaneously with rhythm.

Rhythm and the brain

• But it appears that even our ability to mentally follow and anticipate musical rhythms is tied up with the brain processes we use to move our bodies.
• Using functional MRI, music neuroscientists have established that actively listening to rhythm activates the supplementary motor area of the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia in the deep brain, both of which are important for generating voluntary movements.
• Anticipating and processing events in a rhythm may draw on the same brain mechanisms as anticipating and processing the sensory consequences of our own movements.

Causes of motor disorders

• Drawing links between motor control and rhythm perception may help us make sense of the underlying causes of neurological disorders that both affect rhythm perception and benefit from rhythm-focused therapies, including Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and stuttering.
• Developmental stuttering (a stutter during speech that arises in early childhood) is associated with impairment in rhythm perception and weaker ability to tap in time with a metronome.

Rhythm and boundaries

• I believe that how we sense rhythm blurs the boundaries between our internal and external worlds.
• As we play music in a group, we literally lose ourselves in the rhythm: we no longer predict the timing of our own sounds separately from the mix, but instead predict the timing of all sounds based on the group’s rhythm as a whole.

Prediction and action

• I suspect that the last ingredient is the tight relationship between prediction and action.
• According to one exciting theory of the neural control of action, we move our bodies not by sending “commands” to them, but instead by predicting what we will experience when we move them.
• A shared rhythmic experience is a fluid interplay between sound, external expectations, self-expectation and action.

• HONG KONG, Sept. 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Toshiba TV has announced a new addition to its high-end fleet, the Toshiba Z870, poised to deliver high-resolution display and quality sound performance to the modern-age viewer.
• Toshiba TV Z870's visual ensemble is ultimately completed by the inclusion of the REGZA Bass Woofer Pro, ZR 2.1.2 Surround Sound System, and Front Firing Speaker.
• Beyond its attractive specifications, Toshiba TV's Z870 represents the seamless confluence of technology and design aimed at solving real-world entertainment challenges.
• As the brand-new Toshiba TV Z870 hits markets, anticipation builds towards the dynamism that the latest model promises, and how it is set to continue the success streak of earlier models.

• TCL unites women in the beautiful game of football with Warner Bros.
• Discovery (WBD), a leading global media and entertainment enterprise, TCL has launched #OurBeautifulGame, an integrated creative marketing campaign celebrating the beauty of football, amidst one of the most watched women's sporting events of the year.
• "For years, TCL has been empowering girls and women worldwide through our innovative technology and far-reaching initiatives and campaigns that embrace education and sport," said Yuki Wei, Vice President of TCL Technology and Chairman of the TCL Charity Foundation.
• "With #OurBeautifulGame, we are excited to connect customers and fans with three trailblazers in women's football and inspire them to nurture their own greatness."

• But depending on the nature of the data leaked and the organisation, some breaches can be more serious and have greater consequences than others.
• This is certainly true of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which has accidentally published information about all its police officers and civilian personnel in response to a freedom of information (FoI) request.
• It has been reported that the spreadsheet contained approximately 345,000 pieces of data relating to every police officer.

1. Risking violence

• The most immediate problem is that the personal information of serving police officers is now potentially in the public domain.
• This raises the question of who might have accessed this information and what they might do with it.
• Today’s levels of violence in the north of Ireland are incomparable to the past but the threat of violence against serving police officers remains.
• To them, PSNI officers represent “legitimate targets” because they uphold the constitutional status quo of post-Good Friday agreement Northern Ireland.

2. Stoking community tensions

• Anyone from this background within the PSNI is unlikely to tell anyone beyond their closest family and friends what their job is.
• This is partly because of the security threat but also because of the problematic relationship their community had with the PSNI’s predecessor force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

3. Reviving unresolved grievances

• The force passed the personal details of nationalists to state agents within loyalist groups, who are accused of then murdering them.
• This remains at the core of grievances over state collusion during the Troubles.