Infographic: Online Music Visualized

January 20, 2012 11:11:12 PM

64 Billion Plays: What Online Music Looks Like Today (Infographic)

www.readwriteweb.com

 

In 2011, we collectively listened to 64,876,491,602 songs on the Internet. Whether it was on YouTube, SoundCloud, Rdio or MySpace, the citizens of the Web listened to quite a lot of music last year. Bands and musicians made over 3 billion new fans, who viewed artist profiles over 16 billion times. These are just a fewdata points recently released by Next Big Sound, a startup that tracks the popularity of music and individual artists across a range of digital music providers and social services.
Digital music only continues to grow and mature , as streaming services explode, Internet radio companies go public and developers begin using the power of open APIs to mash up sounds and services. SoundCloud alone saw 231% growth last year, while Twitter saw a 104% increase in music-related activity.

The top artists on the Web are mostly unsurprising. You knew that people can't get enough Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, for better or worse. Rihanna. Katy Perry. Adele. No shockers there.
What's interesting, though, is how the Web is paving the way for unsigned, independent artists to reach levels of popularity that rival major label acts. This is especially true on SoundCloud, where unsigned artists flock to upload their recordings. But even across the larger Web, three unsigned artists broke into Next Big Sound's "Social 50" list, which chronicles, the 50 biggest artists across all of the social and music sites that they track.
These numbers, while impressive, should be taken with a grain of salt. Next Big Sound has gone to great lengths to pull data from sources like YouTube, Rdio, Last.fm, Pandora, SoundCloud and several others. One service missing from their list is Spotify, which just launched in the U.S. this past summer and has seen enormous growth since then. Still, it looks like they're using a pretty hefty sample of online music data to draw their conclusions. You can take a closer look at their methodology . if you're curious.

In 2011, we collectively listened to 64,876,491,602 songs on the Internet. Whether it was on YouTube, SoundCloud, Rdio or MySpace, the citizens of the Web listened to quite a lot of music last year. Bands and musicians made over 3 billion new fans, who viewed artist profiles over 16 billion times. These are just a few data points recently released by Next Big Sound, a startup that tracks the popularity of music and individual artists across a range of digital music providers and social services.\n\nDigital music only continues to grow and mature , as streaming services explode, Internet radio companies go public and developers begin using the power of open APIs to mash up sounds and services. SoundCloud alone saw 231% growth last year, while Twitter saw a 104% increase in music-related activity.

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Avg American Spends Over $1,000/Year on Coffee

January 20, 2012 11:09:04 PM

Average American Worker Spends Nearly $1,100/Year On Coffee

consumerist.com

Some say that coffee is the fuel that keeps the American workforce moving forward. And it's a fuel that comes with a hefty price tag, as a new study shows that the average member of the American workforce spends almost as much on coffee every year as they do on commuting to and from their job.

According to Accounting Principals' latest Workonomix survey, the average American worker is shelling out more than $20 a week on coffee, for a yearly average of $1,092. Whereas commuting costs for the average worker come out to around $1,476 per year. And when you consider the volume of your typical coffee drink versus a gallon of gasoline, it looks like we place a higher value on our java jolt than we do on the 87 octane in our gas tanks.

The younger whippersnappers (ages 18-34) in the office are paying almost about $10 more per week on coffee than their 45-and-older counterparts ($24.74 vs. $14.15, respectively).

Another huge expense for the American worker is lunch, with 66% of the workforce opting to buy their midday meal rather than pack one. This comes at an average cost of around $37/week, making it significantly more expensive than commuting or coffee.

However, with times still being tough, 35% of the survey respondents told Accounting Principals that they have made it a goal to start packing lunch this year to save money.

And, perhaps not surprisingly, that 18-34 age group is paying a lot more for lunch than the 45+ set ($44.78 vs. $31.80, respectively).

Worth mentioning here is that, when asked what they thought their biggest work week expense was in the last year, 42% of respondents thought it would be commuting costs, and only 11% chose lunch expenses.

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January 20, 2012 11:06:56 PM

Infographic: What the Heck is an LLC?

www.readwriteweb.com

 The kind folks at Intuit have posted this infographic on their blog this week that describes what a limited liability corporation is and how it stacks up to other kinds of corporate entities. It couldn't come at a better time for my family, as my wife is considering expanding her own business and wants to investigate her options. LLCs are great if you want to limit the amount of bookkeeping you have to do and if you don't mind paying self-employment taxes. A better choice for larger businesses is an S Corporation (which is what I have used over the past several decades) which has more books to keep but also more flexibility when it comes to how your income is taxed too.

 

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Untethered iPhone 4S and iOS 5 Jailbreak

January 20, 2012 12:24:48 PM

Untethered Jailbreak for iPhone 4S and iOS 5 Is Finally Here [Jailbreak]

lifehacker.com

 iPhone-hacking group Chronic Dev Team just released the first untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1. We've explained why a tethered jailbreak can be such a hassle , which is why we've been waiting to recommend jailbreaking your up-to-date iPhone . Luckily, that wait is over.

…for Mac users, at least. Like normal, the initial release of the GreenPois0n tool, dubbed GreenPois0n Absinthe, is available for Mac only, with a Windows and Linux version on the way. Keep your eyes open for an update to our jailbreaking guideshortly.

Your Wait is (Finally) Over | GreenPois0n

Note: If you're having trouble loading the GreenPois0n page, here's a direct link to the download.

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Manual Photography Cheat Sheet

January 20, 2012 12:14:08 PM

Living in the Stills - Manual Photography Cheat Sheet

livinginthestills.tumblr.com

  

Notes:

Exposure

- The light meter is different from the exposure setting.

- Keeping your light meter at "0" doesn't necessarily mean it's the perfect setting. Just don't stray too far from the "0". Adjust to your liking.

- Positive numbers on your exposure setting will make your photos brighter.

- Negative numbers make your photos darker. 

Aperture

- Small numbers (like f/1.4) have larger openings, which let in more light.

- Big numbers (like f/16) have smaller openings, which let in less light.

Shutter Speed

- Seeing 100, 250, 320, etc. on your viewfinder means "1/(number seen)", like "1/100".

- Try not to use 1/60 or less when handheld, that's when you use a tripod or look for something steady.

- Using longer exposure (slow shutter speed) will let in more light.

- Using shorter exposure (fast shutter speed) will let in less light.

ISO

- ISO is the sensitivity of your camera to light

- Lower numbers are less sensitive to light, which give smoother photos.

- Higher numbers are very sensitive to light, which give very grainy and noisy photos.

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How to Migrate Move an iPhone to a New Computer

January 19, 2012 7:22:56 PM

How Do I Sync My iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with a New Computer Without Wiping Out All My Data?

lifehacker.com

 

Dear Lifehacker,

I've been syncing my iPhone with laptop, but now I want to start syncing with my desktop. When I connect it to the desktop, iTunes wants to erase everything in order to start syncing with his new machine. I want to start syncing with the new machine, not remove all the content already on my phone. What can I do?

Sincerely,

Data in Peril

Dear DiP,

You've stumbled upon a complicated situation. Apple does not make it very easy to start syncing with a new computer unless you want to completely wipe out your device in the process. This doesn't mean you can't do it. The process is simply less than ideal. First things first, let's take a look at how to solve your specific problem. After that, we'll look at a few ways you can sync with multiple machines.

Switch Your iDevice to a New Machine

Switching your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a new machine isn't fun but it isn't impossible. Just follow these steps:

1. Authorize your new computer to use your Apple ID. This is the email address you use to sign into iTunes (and probably anything else Apple-related). If you don't know it offhand, you can just check the computer you're currently syncing with. If you go into the iTunes Store it should appear in the upper-righthand corner. Once you know it, go to the new computer you want to sync with and locate the Store menu. From there, choose Authorize This Computer. (In the event you've switched Apple IDs and made purchases with more than one, you'll need to perform this authorization for every account. See this Apple support page for details.)
2. Connect your iDevice and wait for it to pop up in the iTunes sidebar. Once it does, go to the File menu and select "Transfer Purchases from Hot Carl's iPhone." (I'm just assuming that's what you named your device, but if it's different this option will reflect that.) If your device is full of content, this process may take awhile. Go make yourself one of your famous meatball subs and give it a little while.
3. Now it's time to transfer your other media that wasn't sanctified bypurchased through Apple to get onto this new computer. If it's all in your other computer's iTunes, you can just copy this data to the new machine you want to sync with. You'll find it in Your Hard Driver -> Users -> Your Home Folder (it'll be labeled with your username) -> Music -> iTunes. You won't need everything in that folder, but that's the content you're looking for. Just drag all the content in your iTunes folder on to the new copy of iTunes you want to sync with. This will add it to iTunes but you won't be able to keep your playlists. The only way to be able to do that is to completely replace your iTunes library on the new computer with the old one, or use an application like Media Rover (or this more DIY option) to sync the two together.
4. In the event you have content on your iDevice that's not in the old computer's iTunes library, you need to transfer that content from your device. To do that, you'll need some extraction software. $20 can get you the fantastic iRip . It'll send your music straight to iTunes if you've got a Mac. Senuti will do the same for free, but isn't quite as feature-rich or elegant. If you're running Windows, you can just go into iTunes, select your device, enable disk mode, and open up the disk in Windows. Once you have the iPod open in Windows Explorer you'll need to go to the Tools menu, choose Folder Option, and check view hidden files and folders. This will provide you access to your media. Alternatively you can use winamp's iPod plugin (along with Winamp , of course).
5. Sync your apps from your device to your computer in iTunes by clicking on the Apps tab from your device's page, checking the sync apps option, and clicking "Apply".
6. It never hurts to backup your device so let's make that a necessary step. Right-click your device in the iTunes sidebar and choose Backup. (This should take a few minutes so now's a good time to see what else is on Lifehacker.com .)

Wasn't that tedious and annoying? On the plus side, at least your content is ready to be synced on the new machine. If your content gets wiped on your phone, at least it's safe and sound in iTunes on the new computer you want to sync with so it can be transferred back. Of course you can always just buy iTunes Match and let Apple sync your music for you. (Note: you'll still have to go through the processes above to transfer your apps, videos, and everything else, but at least it'll take care of what is likely the biggest hassle.)

Sync Your iDevice with Multiple Machines

Full size

There are two ways you might want to sync with multiple machines and neither are perfect. First, if you want to sync some content (such as music, videos, and other media) with one machine and different content with another (such as apps and contacts) you can do that easily by just being selective on each machine. On the first machine, connect your device and tell it what you want to sync. On the second machine, do the same but select different options. That means if you tell the first machine to sync music you cannot sync music with the second machine. This has the obvious drawback of being unable to take the same kinds of content from two machines, but if that's not something you need to do then this method should work just fine.

If you just want to be able to sync with any machine, the absolute best method (in my opinion) is syncing your iTunes folder with Dropbox . That link will take you to a very in-depth tutorial that'll teach you the entire process for both Mac and Windows. I've been doing it for almost a year now and it's fantastic. If you don't want to pay for all that Dropbox space, however, check out MediaRover . It's free and will sync everything locally.

Assuming you've made it through this entire article, you're probably well-aware by now that there's no perfect solution. While it sucks that your iDevice still can't sync and work with multiple computers easily, hopefully these options will help you get by in the interim. Good luck and happy syncing!

Love,

Lifehacker

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December 30, 2011 3:02:40 PM

Backbone of the flavor network

flowingdata.com

Food flavors across cultures and geography vary a lot. Some cuisines use a lot of scallion and ginger, whereas another might use a lot of onion and butter. Then again, everyone seems to use garlic. Yong-Yeol Ahn, et al. took a closer look at what makes food taste different , breaking ingredients into flavor compounds and examining what the ingredients had in common. A flavor network was the result:

Each node denotes an ingredient, the node color indicates food category, and node size reflects the ingredient prevalence in recipes. Two ingredients are connected if they share a significant number of flavor compounds, link thickness representing the number of shared compounds between the two ingredients. Adjacent links are bundled to reduce the clutter.

Mushrooms and liver are on the edges, out on their lonesome.

Nature

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January 7, 2012 6:42:24 PM

Welcome to the Digital Living Room

Mother Jones: The Venn of Ron Paul and Other Mysteries of Libertarianism Explained

January 7, 2012 9:51:12 AM

The Venn of Ron Paul and Other Mysteries of Libertarianism Explained | Mother Jones

m.motherjones.com

By Josh Harkinson on Fri. January 6, 2012 11:26 AM PDT

Congressman Ron Paul's third-place finish in Tuesday's Iowa Republican Caucus was a remarkably strong showing for a candidate who has so little in common with mainstream Republicans. Perhaps the nation's most politically unique congressman, Paul shares policy stances with conservatives, liberals, and libertarians, while differing markedly from all of them.

So where does Paul fit in the Libertarian universe?

Libertarian Theology

Libertarianism might be a simple ideology, an aversion to big government in all its forms, but don't tell that to libertarians: "Like any movement of any size," says Nick Gillespie, editor of the libertarian magazine Reason , "it is an endless operation of trying to figure out more and more ways in which people who agree on 99.9 percent of everything can really hate each other's guts."

Anarcho-Capitalists: The most radical of the lot, they want to abolish government entirely (though, unlike regular anarchists, they do support private property rights). "The state acts like a band of thieves and killers," explains Lew Rockwell, the best-known exponent of this strain. "The private sector doesn't do that."
Minarchists: Archrivals to the anarcho-capitalists, they support a minimalist version of government: Let the state handle roads, policing, and defense—but nothing more. Many, including Ron Paul, view the Constitution as the ultimate minarchist document.
Cosmopolitan Libertarians: Term used by the minarchist editors of Reason to describe their embrace of world citizenship and deride rivals as hayseeds
Economic Libertarians: Worship free-market absolutists like Milton Friedman
Hippie Libertarians: Worship freedom-loving freaks like Larry Flynt
Religious Libertarians: Worship deities of their choosing, care about politics primarily as it affects religious freedom. In 17th-century England they were Puritan Roundheads. In 21st-century America they're Mormons.
Gold Bugs: Advocate a return to the gold standard, or some equivalent, as a way to diminish the fiscal powers of the state; dismiss foes as "inflationists"
Objectivists: Followers of philosopher Ayn Rand who love morality tales, hate anarchy, and endorse a scorched-earth foreign policy. If "flattening Fallujah to end the Iraqi insurgency will save American lives," Ayn Rand Institute director Yaron Brook has written, "to refrain from [doing so] is morally evil."
Neolibertarians: Libertarian neocons; big supporters of the Iraq War
Paleolibertarians: Old-schoolers who despise the neolibertarians for selling out to the system. Also think atheism is overrated.
Technolibertarians: Extropians, transhumanists, sci-fi-fans, they strive to transcend humanity's meat-puppet limitations and take self-determination to the final frontier.
South Park Conservatives: Find their politics articulated in a show created by two avowed libertarians; a seminal episode follows a race for school mascot between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. Which, says Reason 's Gillespie, "pretty much sums up how most libertarians approach politics."
Paultards: Blogosphere dis for those who annoy the online masses by relentlessly shilling for their man in comment threads, polls, and social networking sites

—J.H.

Libertarian Facts:

• Around 9 percent of Americans are libertarians. What makes them tick?
• 85% are white.
• 67% are men.
• 53% are under 50.
• 59% say they are satisfied financially.
• 82% say government is almost always inefficient and wasteful.
• 67% say they're politically independent, yet
• 70% say they'll vote for a Republican in 2012.
• 27% say Mitt Romney is their top pick;
• 13% say Ron Paul.
• 36% say they don't know where Obama was born.
• 38% regularly watch Fox News.
• 60% say we shouldn't give up privacy to be safer from terrorism.54% support legalizing pot.
• 71% say homosexuality should be accepted,
• Yet only
• 43% support gay marriage.
• 63% say there's no solid evidence of global warming.

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January 8, 2012 1:48:00 PM

Take control of your PC's network identity with MAC Address Changer

betanews.com

 

Technitium has released version 6.0 of its MAC Address Changer  tool, extending the program's abilities with many new network options and features.

If you simply want to find out more about your system, for instance, then launching the program will reveal all its network adapters, along with their speed, MAC address, IP address(es), gateways, DNS servers and even a graph charting adapter traffic.

MAC Address Changer 6.0 now also provides the ability to change your gateway, IP address, DNS Server and more with a quick right-click on the relevant section of the IP Address pane. It's just as easy to release or renew your current IP address with any selected network adapter. And the new build extends this with IPv6 support, too.

Of course what the program is really all about is changing an adapter's MAC address, something that can be very useful in protecting your privacy or testing your network security, and here operations are as easy as ever. In a click or two you're able to generate a random MAC address, enter one manually, or choose the address from a list; this can apply just for the current session, or be made persistent; and the original address can then be restored when testing is complete.

While this worked just fine for us, the rules for MAC address use on Windows can be complex and there are some potential gotchas. The author welcomes feedback on the MAC Address Changer , though, so if you have any problems then drop him an email  and see what he has to say.

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January 8, 2012 2:22:08 PM

Winter BicycleTires Solved w Zip-Ties!

www.dutchbikeco.com

SNOWPOCALYPSE !

No matter how much we swear we've learned our lessons, Seattle always seems to get caught by surprise by the snow. There we were, minding our own business with our feet all toasty in our sandals and socks, when the temperature plummeted and it turned into Juneau in January. While this year the City did a much better job than last year at preventing widespread carnage and destruction, we at Dutch Bike Seattle still didn't bring in studded tires because it never snows in Seattle. Even if we had stocked them, I'm not sure they'd sell because it never snows in Seattle, right?

We found something else, though. Something else entirely.

You're not going to believe it at first.

It's quick, it's cheap, and yes, it looks completely ludicrous.

BUT. It works. It works beautifully.

I can accelerate, brake, and corner with aplomb, even on the vile snowpack/sheet ice mix the plows leave in the bike lanes. The zip ties dig nicely into the hardest packed surfaces, but they're thin enough not to bounce the bike around at low speed or on short pavement sections.

I've cunningly positioned the tie heads to dig in as soon as the bike goes into a corner while staying up and off the ground in a straight line. This is the place that the ties are most likely to interfere with the fenders, so if you're installing these yourself be careful to make sure you have or can create the clearance.

It is at this point that I must admit that I didn't dream up this amazing technique. It pains me to admit this not because my ego suffers, but because the zip-tie-DIY-bicycle-snow-chains idea appears to have originated with my favorite bicycle industry whipping boy: fixed gear hipster culture. Several years ago, I'm sure, some bright child with extremely tight pants and an asymmetrical haircut had a genius-caliber idea, and I hate that it wasn't me. So here it is: Fixed gear street bike hipster guys, I'm sorry for the things I've said over the years. It's not true that the only drink you like is 4Loko. It's also not true that you're not allowed to wear shoes that don't match your bikes. You can wear whatever you want. And finally, you have come up with a good idea besides brightly colored deep-section rims.

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Science Proves Weed is Awesome

January 11, 2012 2:47:44 PM

Yet Again, Science Proves That Weed is Awesome

www.brobible.com

Every time you hear a doctor on a pro-weed documentary talking about the lack of side effects from marijuana, they always have that little side note to the tune of "but it may cause emphysema and other lung troubles." Well, it turns out that for most users that's not actually true.

 

The Journal of the American Medical Association released the results of a study on Tuesday that showed that occasional marijuana use does not harm lung function. There is, however, a downside for regular smokers. By "occasional" they mean what your mom thought you meant when you said you only do it "occasionally" in high school. Apparently the average weed smoker wasn't lying to Mom and only smokes a joint a week or so and these results only apply to them. I don't know these people. Where are they? Oh wait, they're talking about preppie, drunk girls at parties. Yeah, that's it.

There weren't enough heavy marijuana smokers involved in the study to draw any conclusions about heavy use, which was classified as two joints a day or more (which is what I thought was less than "occasional" use in high school).

 

The study, conducted by researchers at UC-San Francisco (naturally) and UAB, was based on data collected from a federal health study from 1985-2005, which measured the health of 5,115 young adults. During the original 20-year study, lung function was measured. It showed that not only did people who reported using marijuana weekly not suffer from declining lung function, but some actually showed improved lung function. This is thought to be attributed to the fact that weed smokers inhale deeply, which may strengthen lung tissue or that lung tests require the same breathing used when smoking, so marijuana users are more "practiced."

 

Cigarette smokers of course showed decreased lung function over time (which is no surprise to anyone who smokes or has smoked). The researchers also speculated that, even though marijuana does contain some of the irritating chemicals found in cigarettes, the THC might act as an anti-inflammatory that basically cancels out the irritating chemicals. No joke. 

 

 

(Quick tip: It helped me to quit smoking cigarettes by rolling joints with filters so it felt like a cigarette. I smoked a shitload of weed for a few weeks though.)

This study of course counts on the impossible notion that people would tell the complete truth. I would say it's much more likely that people would claim that they use less marijuana than they actually do. Of course this is just speculation, but I know I've lied to medical professionals about many things simply because I was irrationally intimidated or scared that they might scold me. It's not good, but people do it.

 

This study also only took smoking joints into account. It didn't take smoking out of a water pipe, which eliminates toxins , and it most certainly didn't take vaporizing, which eliminates virtually all toxins , into account.

Personally, I am going to shove these findings in the faces of more than a couple people I know that have been so conditioned by society to believe that marijuana is a terrible drug that they are ignorant to the facts that it's really not that harmful. It's just kind of getting to be like, "Damn, weed, are you seriously that awesome?"

 

But I also don't want to be a cheerleader for marijuana while being ignorant to the facts as well. I get so tired of hearing people talk about marijuana like there are no negative side effects; that's just silly. The most harmful aspect of marijuana is that it tends to make people lazy and, as "South Park" so accurately put it, "It can make you okay with being bored." And don't be fooled by people that say marijuana isn't addicting. They are only referring to physical addiction, as in the case of heroin withdrawals. Most addiction is physiological and I have known several people that are addicted to marijuana. People are addicted to all sorts of behaviors and other things that aren't physically addicting. But I think it depends on the person. If anything becomes an obsession or starts to cause more harm than the amount of pleasure it gives, then that is an addiction and you should stop. But this is the exception with marijuana as opposed to the norm, which can't be said for with cigarettes. This is why I love marijuana so much. I don't want to sound cliché and say, "Enjoy responsibly." I think I'll just say, "Make sure you're enjoying life as much as possible. And to do that, you need to consider the next step while still savoring the present." To me, that's what life, and the weed lover's lifestyle, is all about.

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The Cognitive Benefits Of Chewing Gum

January 18, 2012 10:16:48 AM

The Cognitive Benefits Of Chewing Gum | Wired Science | Wired.com

www.wired.com

Why do people chew gum? If an anthropologist from Mars ever visited a typical supermarket, they'd be confounded by those shelves near the checkout aisle that display dozens of flavored gum options. Chewing without eating seems like such a ridiculous habit, the oral equivalent of running on a treadmill. And yet, people have been chewing gum for thousands of years, ever since the ancient Greeks began popping wads of mastic tree resin in their mouth to sweeten the breath. Socrates probably chewed gum.
It turns out there's an excellent rationale for this long-standing cultural habit: Gum is an effective booster of mental performance, conferring all sorts of benefits without any side effects. The latest investigation of gum chewing comes from a team of psychologists at St. Lawrence University. The experiment went like this: 159 students were given a battery of demanding cognitive tasks, such as repeating random numbers backward and solving difficult logic puzzles. Half of the subjects chewed gum (sugar-free and sugar-added) while the other half were given nothing. Here's where things get peculiar: Those randomly assigned to the gum-chewing condition significantly outperformed those in the control condition on five out of six tests. (The one exception was verbal fluency, in which subjects were asked to name as many words as possible from a given category, such as "animals.") The sugar content of the gum had no effect on test performance.
While previous studies achieved similar results — chewing gum is often a better test aid than caffeine — this latest research investigated the time course of the gum advantage. It turns out to be rather short lived, as gum chewers only showed an increase in performance during the first 20 minutes of testing. After that, they performed identically to non-chewers.
What's responsible for this mental boost? Nobody really knows. It doesn't appear to depend on glucose, since sugar-free gum generated the same benefits. Instead, the researchers propose that gum enhances performance due to "mastication-induced arousal." The act of chewing, in other words, wakes us up, ensuring that we are fully focused on the task at hand. Unfortunately, this boost is fleeting. The takeaway of this research is straightforward: When taking a test, save the gum for the hardest part, or for those questions when you feel your focus flagging. The gum will help you concentrate, but the help won't last long.
This latest paper only adds to the impressive body of psychological literature on gum. Last month, scientists at Coventry University found that people chewing mint gum showed a dramatic decrease in feelings of sleepiness. The subjects also looked less exhausted when assessed with the Pupillographic Sleepiness Test (PST), which uses the oscillations of the pupils as a metric of tiredness. When we chew gum, we gain alertness and attention, but without the jitters.
And then there's this paper, from a researcher at Cardiff University. 133 volunteers were given cognitive tests with and without chewing gum. (They were also randomly assigned gum flavors, treated to a selection of fruits and mints.) Approximately half of the volunteers were tested while listening to a screeching noise — this was the stress condition — while the other volunteers took the test in a quiet room. After each testing session, the volunteers rated their mood and underwent a number of physiological measurements, including heart rate and salivary cortisol levels. (Cortisol is a stress hormone, but it's also a good indicator of alertness.) As expected, gum chewers were more attentive than non-chewers, with elevated heart rates and cortisol levels. They also had much faster reaction times, especially on more difficult reaction tests. They even appeared to be in a better mood.
Given the uncanny power of gum, it seems a little silly that we don't allow it in the classroom. (If a pill achieved these same results, we'd all be popping it.) Of course, gum is disgusting and unsightly once it becomes litter, but it also appears to be a wonderful stimulant, allowing us to benefit from the attentional boost of eating without having to swallow or ingest calories. (Plus, fresh breath!) A recent review of the gum-chewing literature summarizes the science: "Gum appears to be a functional food with function but no food."