Research has shown that music might be a drug-free way to lower humans’ pain perception. This decreased sensitivity to pain – also known as hypoalgesia – can occur when pain stimuli are disrupted between their point of input and where they are recognized as pain by the conscious mind. In a new study, researchers in...
Art & Style
How Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor Became Halloween’s Theme Song
In Bach’s era, the pipe organ was one of the world’s most technologically advanced instruments. Stefano Bianchetti/Corbis via Getty Images Imagine a grand house on a hill, after dark on an autumn night. As the door opens, an organ pierces through the thick silence and echoes through the cavernous halls. The tune that comes to...
Africa’s Fashion Industry Is Growing to Meet Global Demands but Needs More Investment, UNESCO Says
Africa’s fashion industry is growing rapidly to meet local and international demand but inadequate investment limits its potential, UNESCO said Thursday in a report released during Lagos Fashion Week. Currently valued at $15.5 billion worth of exports annually, the earnings from the continent’s fashion industry could triple over a decade with the right investment and...
Nostalgia Fuels Hype for Adult Barbie Costumes, Fashion Design Expert Says
This Halloween is expected to look a lot like Barbie’s Dreamland. The widely successful summer film’s stars Barbie and Ken have found their way onto the top Halloween costume lists for this year. In fact, social media has even dubbed the holiday #Barbieween. Pop culture has long inspired fashion, including Halloween costumes, said Dina Smith-Glaviana, a...
Inspired by Llamas, the Desert and Mother Earth, These Craftswomen Weave Sacred Textiles
In northern Chile, Teófila Challapa learned to weave surrounded by the hills and sandy roads of the Atacama Desert. “Spin the threads, girl,” her grandmother told her a half a century ago. Aymara women like Challapa, now 59, become acquainted with wool threads under blue skies and air so thin that outsiders struggle to breathe....
As Shipping Costs Rise, Galleries Get Creative
‘Shipping has become a nightmare,’ says Mihai Nicodim, owner of Nicodim Gallery (Los Angeles and New York City). ‘It almost doubled. When the pandemic hit, we were getting quotes that quadrupled overnight.’ Talk to any dealer right now about shipping costs and you are likely to get the same reaction. Dealers responding to a survey for the Art...
Nigeria’s Slick Netflix Epic, Jagun Jagun, Explores a Rich Past That Also Reflects the World Today
Netflix’s recently released film Jagun Jagun (The Warrior) is set in pre-colonial Nigeria and follows the story of a feared warlord named Ogunjimi. While playing out in the past, it is steeped in contemporary universal cultural, political and socio-economic realities. The first 15 minutes of the movie establishes that the story is centred on a...
Stone Age Artists Carved Detailed Human and Animal Tracks in Rock Art in Namibia
During the Later Stone Age in what is now Namibia, rock artists imbued so much detail into their engravings of human and animal prints that current-day Indigenous trackers could identify which animals’ prints they were depicting, as well as the animals’ general age and sex. Andreas Pastoors of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, and colleagues report these...
Art and Gastronomy Meet in Copenhagen
A 17th-century castle covered in lush vines located on a quaint canal in Copenhagen, Kunsthal Charlottenborg has been home to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts since 1701. It has also been one of the country’s leading exhibition spaces for the past 140 years. Walking through its bright galleries, one can almost taste the...
The Economics of “Girl Math” Makes Luxury Purchases Feel Reasonable, Says Expert
If you’ve been scrolling through social media lately or have a young adult in your household, you might have caught wind of the latest viral trend, “girl math.” According to Virginia Tech economist Jadrian Wooten this is a blend of creative rationalization and financial justifications that is turning the tables on how some people perceive...