This is Science in the News, in VOA Special English. Im Christopher Cruise.

Today we tell about experiments at a major university in the central United States. Northwestern University researchers are studying how music affects the human brain. Jim Tedder has the story. It doesnt matter whether you play a guitar, a piano, a horn, or a drum. And what kind of music you play is not important. Maybe you like to play classical music like this. Or maybe you like to play this kind of music. Or this Or even this Just play it! It will do good things for your body because Weve known for some time that playing a musical instrument can change the anatomy as well as the functionthe way the brain works. Nina Kraus is a professor at Northwestern University near Chicago, Illinois. She is also the head of the Auditory-Neuroscience Laboratory, where she investigates how music affects the human body. Recently, she did tests in her lab using forty-five volunteers. Some of them had taken music classes and played an instrument, and others had not. People will play and study a musical instrument for some time in their lives and then thats it! And we wanted to know did this early experience have a lasting effect on the way the nervous system responded to sound. Professor Kraus began by gently placing electrodes onto the heads of the volunteers. The wires from these electrical devices were then connected to a computer. Nerves in your brain that respond to sound give off electricity, and we can capture that electricity, and we can determine how does your nervous system

respond to speech, to music, to elements of sound that we think are important for communication. One of the simplest sounds played for the volunteers was da. Listen carefully because the sound is very short and quick. Here is the sound again. After the human brain processed the sound, it sounded like this. That sound came through the computer and was played on a speaker. Again The volunteers also heard other sounds, like this music from the British rock group Deep Purple. Here is a very small part of the song Smoke on the Water. Listen carefully. Now, here is what it sounded like on a speaker after going through the brain of a volunteer. The second sound is not as clear as the first, but it provided the information needed to be studied on a computer screen. Ms. Kraus says she could see an important difference in the way the processed sounds looked. These young adults who received formal music instruction as children had more robust neural responses to sound than peers who had never participated in music lessons. She says she could look at the computer screen and easily see who was a musician, and who was not. The computer screens graph, or picture of the sound, was larger for the volunteers who played music. Every sound we hear has a main or fundamental frequency. This helps us determine the pitch. In music, that helps us decide if one sound, or musical note, is higher or lower than another. So, for a musician The responses to this fundamental frequency that carries pitch information was simply larger in magnitudethe voltagesthe electrical activity was larger in response to these pitch elements.

Professor Kraus says the people tested in the experiment could have been listening to any kind of sound, or any kind of music. They could even have been asleep. She could still see how their brains were understanding and identifying what they were hearing. So now we know that the brains of musicians are different from those of other people. What is the big deal? Why is this important? According to Nina Kraus, that matters a lot as we get older. Many people notice that, as the years go by, their hearing gets worse. Just hearing an old friends voice in a noisy place can be difficult. But if you have ever played a musical instrument Your nervous system automatically gets good at responding to sounds that the brain has learned are important. So If youre talking to me in a noisy restaurant and my nervous system is very good at locking onto the sound of your voice, then Im going to be better able to understand what it is that you say. The research at Northwestern University shows that playing a musical instrument is good for your brain. And although our ears may not work as well as we age, the brain remembers how to lock onto the important sounds. And that helps us to hear better. Musicians become quite good a being able to pull out the part of the sound that they are interested in listening to. For example, the sound of their own instrument. And there is something else good about playing musicif I could only remember Oh, yes! Our brains get better at remembering things. When we play a piano, for instance, we force our brains to remember the note we just played. If your brain could talk, it might ask itself, is that the right sound? Or is it this one? Should I play the notes like this? Or this? Does this sound better with a major chorda happier sound? Or a minor chord, a sadder sound?

Ms. Kraus says when we play a musical instrument we are exercising and making important electrical connections, or pathways, in our brains. This might even help our brains when we are trying to learn another language, or a new subject in school. So, if learning to play a simple song is good, is it better to try to learn to play something much more complex, like Bach or Chopin, for example? Professor Kraus says she has yet to test that proposal, but We know that pushing ourselves, physically or intellectually, is very good for the development of the nervous system. Certainly the more challenging the task and the more engaging the task, the stronger the connections are likely to be. Over twenty years ago, a French scientist wrote about what he called the Mozart Effect. He said that just listening to the classical music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart could help the human brain. Some researchers said that Mozarts music would make you smarter, or even help your brain cure some health disorders. Others said that there was nothing special about Mozarts music. Any kind of high energy music would work. So if the cost of a musical instrument or music lessons is too costly, can we get the same brain experience just by listening? Ms. Kraus saysno. Usually people do have teachers, or they can teach themselves. But the point is theyre actively playing a musical instrument. Theyre actively engaging in making music. Were not talking about the effects of simply passively listening to music. I like to give the analogy that you are not going to get physically fit by watching spectator sports. Professor Kraus thinks it would be a very good thing if young people around the world could take music lessons in school. Even in difficult economic times, she urges school teachers and the administrators who control the money, not to cut back on musical training. Music, beyond being inherently a wonderful activity in and of itself, seems to confer benefits that extend outside the music domain, and extend into areas that are very, very important for human communication. A report on the study was published in the August twenty-second edition of The Journal of Neuroscience. There is much more about Nina Kraus work at her website: www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu.

She is sure that playing a musical instrument is a really good and important thing to do. It is fun, and it helps your brain, now and in the future. Im a biologist and I study learning. Whether its music or anything that we engage in, we are what we do. And our nervous system really changes according to how we spend our time.

World Not Prepared to Deal With the Fast Growth of Cities

The United Nations is warning that the world is not prepared to deal with the fast growth of cities. The World Economic and Social Survey 2013 calls for new ways to meet the needs of city populations. More than 6.5 billion people are expected to be living in cities by 2050. Most new city dwellers will be in developing countries. The United Nations says the effect on limited resources in many countries will be huge. The World Economic and Social Survey points to the increasing demand for energy, water, sanitation)( , public services, education and health care. The world population is expected to rise to more than nine billion by 2050, twothirds of all people are expected to live in cities. The United Nations says about 80 percent of this growing urban population will be found in Africa and Asia. The report says sustainable development of urban areas requires coordination and investments to deal with important issues, these include land-use, food security, job creation and transportation.

Rural#urban

Willem Van Der Geest is with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, he says cities need to work closely with rural communities, so that food supplies can be secured, and the environment can be protected. "We need sufficient integration with cities... An integration between the rural and urban economies is absolutely vital for issues of nutrition, food security, and environmental sustainability." The report says development in a sustainable way is important to ending poverty. The report also examines the problem of food insecurity, which affects hundreds of millions of people around the world. One in eight people are still chronically undernourished) ( . UN officials says somethings are clear. The Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, Shamshad Akhtar, says world food production will have to increase by 70%, that increase will be needed to feed the additional 2.3 billion people expected on the planet by the middle of the century. She says an important part of meeting that need is to waste less food. "There has to be efforts to reduce food wastage. Changes will have to take place in the food chain-production, storage, transportation and consumption." Food and nutrition security are core elements of the sustainable development agenda. And that's the Economics Report from VOA Learning English, I'm Mario Ritter.

Overweight Children in Developing Countries

The World Health Organization (WHO) says there has been a sharp increase in the number of children in developing countries who weight to much. In Africa countries, the WHO says the number of overweight or obese children is two times as high as it was 20 years ago. Around the world, about 43 million children under the age of five were overweight in 2011. Doctors use height, weight and age to measure whether a person is underweight, normal, overweight or obese. Overweight & obese children are more likely to become overweight & obese adults. The condition can lead to serious health problems like diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Francesco Branca is the director of the WHO Department of Nutrition for Health and Development. He says people are eating manufactured or processed food more often, he says it often has a high sugar, fat and salt content. The WHO also says people are gaining weight because of city lifestyles. They travel in cars or other vehicles more than on foot, and they are less physical activity in general. The WHO says it is common to find poor nutrition and obesity in the same country, the same community and even in the same family. And experts say lowering obesity rates is especially complex in countries that also deal with higher rate of infectious disease. The WHO has some basic solutions for individuals and countries. The organization says to lower your in-take of fat, sugar, salt and proceesed food. It says eat more fruit and vegetables, and increase physical activity. The WHO says these actions are especially important for children. And WHO experts say mothers should breastfeed their babies for at least the first six months of life if possible. WHO official Francesco Branca says government should concern providing vitamin for children. He says educational campaigns about problems linked

to obesity would also help. And he says government policies should deal with how food is marketed to children. Mr Branca says food manufactures must balance quality and taste with the dangers of sugar, fat and salt. He also said reducing the number of overweight children will not be easy. He says the goal is difficult to meet even in wealthy countries. The currently goal of the WHO's World Health Assembly is to prevent an increase in the percentage of overweight children during the next twelve years. And that's the Health Report from VOA Learning English, I'm Karen Leggett.

School Lunch Important for Health and Education

I'm June Simms. Today we hear about two studies on childhood hunger and its effects on educational development and the world economy. We begin with a story out of Dakar, Senegal. School Lunch Important for Health and Education Educators in low-income areas everywhere struggle with one of the most basic barriers to teaching children -- hungry students. The United Nations World Food Program says in its 2013 State of School Feeding Worldwide report that supplying meals and snacks to students has proven valuable. Researchers in Dakar, Senegal agree. They found that supplying free lunches to students in rural primary schools not only made them healthier, it raised their test scores. Avi Arditti has more.

During the 2009-2010 academic year, researchers in Senegal did an experiment. They selected 120 rural primary schools in four of the poorest areas of the country. Students at half the schools received free, daily lunches -- a local dish of rice with vegetables and either fish or meat, cooked in oil. Students at the other 60 schools did not receive meals. Abdoulaye Diagne is the director of the Consortium for Social Economic Research in Dakar. He led the study. He says students who received school meals were better able to memorize and reason. He says they learned and understood more than those students who did not receive meals. The study found that standardized test scores went up an average of 7 percentage points in French and 8.5 percentage points in math. The effect was even greater for girls and for the youngest students. The World Food Program says that about $75 billion goes into school feeding programs each year worldwide. Most of this money comes from governments. However, the WFP says only 18 percent of children in the poorest countries receive a daily meal at school. This compares to nearly half of children in middleincome countries. Bettina Luescher is with the World Food Program. "School meals are a crucially important part and play a huge role in schools around the world. It means, in practicality, kids can concentrate. They can study. They stay in school. They will send their own children to school one day. Girls will have fewer children if they have school meals and an education; they marry at a later stage. And there's a huge impact on how they grow up to become strong, smart adults." Luescher says that school feeding programs also help protect children from crises -- like droughts, war, or sudden increases in food prices.

"School meals are a way of keeping children in school. It's often the only way that families can afford to keep their children fed. Sometimes it's the only meal that some of these children get." The big problem, of course, is cost. This is especially true in low-income countries. However, the WFP estimates that for every dollar spent on a school meal, countries will see three dollars in economic returns. Local farmers, for example, can sell their food to the school meal programs, and the country can build a smarter workforce. I'm Avi Arditti.

And I'm June Simms. You are listening to As It Is from VOA Learning English. Effects of Childhood Malnutrition Far Reaching and Lasting About one-quarter of the world's children may underperform at school because of poor nutrition. So says a new report from the Britain-based charity Save the Children. The "Food for Thought" report says a malnourished child is almost 20 percent more likely to have trouble reading than someone of the same age who has a good diet. David McNair is head of growth, equity and livelihoods at Save the Children UK. "Those who are malnourished consistently have scored lower on math tests and find it more difficult to read a simple sentence at age eight. And as they go through life that affects their confidence, their career aspirations and ultimately their ability to earn money." The report is based on an international study of childhood poverty. Researchers from the University of Oxford are leading the "Young Lives" study. They are following the lives of 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam over a 15-year period.

The report notes that the period from when a woman becomes pregnant until a child is two years old is an important time for brain development. But McNair says the effect of malnutrition goes beyond the biology of the brain. "There is interesting evidence on the stimulus that children receive. So because children who are malnourished look smaller, their parents and their caregivers tend to treat them as if they were younger than they are. And that means they do not get the right stimulus and their brains are not developing as a result of that stimulus." The report says childhood malnutrition is also a major threat to the long-term economic growth of many developing countries. United Nations figures suggest that last year nearly 50 percent of children under five in southern Asia were stunted, too short for their age because of poor nutrition. This was also the case for 40 percent of children under five in subSaharan Africa. Save the Children predicts that malnourished children may, as adults, earn 20 percent less than children who were properly fed. It says this costs the global economy more than $100 billion a year. McNair says targeting malnutrition now will have major long-term effects. But, currently nutrition programs get just over 0.3 percent of global development spending. Save the Children wants spending on nutrition to more than double to $1 billion a year. Earlier this week, the British and Brazilian governments held the first-ever highlevel nutrition pledging conference. They say it is a first step in moving malnutrition to a higher level as an important economic and social development issue. VOA World News is coming up at the beginning of the hour Universal Time.

Have a great day.

Worries About Rising Food Prices May Ease

A United Nations report says world food prices stayed the same in August. Prices were unchanged after rising sharply in July. A summer of drought in the United States and Russia has reduced expectations for corn and wheat supplies. As a result, a measure of food prices by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization rose six percent in July. But FAO economist Concepcion Calpe says the expected reductions did not get any worse in August. CONCEPCION CALPE: "We're not in a bad situation, or as bad situation as we were last month because the prospects are not worsening further. And this is already good news." Ms. Calpe says the FAO price index remains about ten percent below its highest level, reached in February twenty-eleven. But prices are still twice as high as they were ten years ago. Demand remains high for food commodities like maize and wheat. The U.N. estimates that more cereal crops will be consumed this year than will be produced. That means markets will have to use some of the supplies that have been kept in reserve. Concepcion Calpe says those reserves have been low for several years. CONCEPCION CALPE: "And therefore we are very much susceptible to very quick changes because there is very little buffer on which to rely to protect ourselves should there be another bad news on the production front." She says there will be ups and downs in prices until production meets the level of demand. Still, many experts do not expect a repeat of the crisis of two thousand seven and two thousand eight. Prices jumped, playing a part in civil unrest in several countries. For one thing, these experts point out that energy prices are lower now. That means producing and transporting food is not as costly. And Gary Ellerts at the United States Agency for International Development says this year's bad weather

has not affected another important crop: rice. Mr. Eilerts is head of the agency's Famine Early Warning System. GARY EILERTS: "Rice is very calm, very nice. Prices are not volatile. There's a large supply. And so, countries that depend on that, that were hurt a great deal in two thousand eight, are not being touched right now." However, economist Lourdes Adriano at the Asian Development Bank says prices could increase if India stops exporting rice because of a drought. LOURDES ADRIANO: "If we have a severe monsoon in India and it starts banning again the export of rice, then we will have a major problem. Because as you know, global rice trade is very thin. There are very, very few major exporters." Prices jumped when India banned rice exports in two thousand eight during the food inflation crisis. And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. I'm Jim Tedder.

Can You 'Think and Grow Rich?' A Famous Books Says, 'Yes'

Can you think your way to wealth and success? Napoleon Hill believed that if you think the right thoughts you can. In nineteen thirty-seven, after many years of researching financial success and observing people who had become rich, he published the book Think and Grow Rich. Even though it was published in the middle of The Great Depression, it was immediately successful. It is one of the most-popular non-fiction books ever written. Forbes Magazine says it has sold seventy million copies since it first appeared, and continues to sell copies today. Napoleon Hill wrote at least ten other books about success before his death in nineteen seventy. But none of them came close to selling as many copies as Think and Grow Rich.

SmarterComics has released an illustrated version of the book. Franco Arda is the companys founder and publisher. He used to work as an investment banker. He started the company three years ago with his own money. He wanted to create picture books that increase understanding. His versions provide much of the information that is in full-length books but in an easy-to-understand, picture, or comic, form. Mr. Arda says readers will understand and remember more about gaining success if they read the comic book version of Think and Grow Rich. Because its illustrated, its a comic book style -- one, its easier to read and, two, its also easier to remember. Because once you see something visually, its just your brain can absorb it much quicker and then you can retain it much longer. Mr. Arda says he first read Think and Grow Rich when he was a teenager. He credits the book for much of his financial success. He says it taught him to change the way he thinks about money and success. We have to start with your brain first to subconsciously program yourself towards riches that you can imagine, or that you think money and, obviously that you create a plan afterwards. Mr. Arda says Napoleon Hill found that you must write down what you want to achieve, how and when you want to achieve it and what you are willing to sacrifice for it. Napoleon Hill said you must read that statement out loud every morning when you wake up and every evening before you go to sleep. SmarterComics says Think and Grow Rich proves that wealth is a lifelong pursuit achieved by believing in the value of personal ideas. It says anyone can achieve their dreams by refusing to be stopped by temporary problems.

And thats the VOA Special English Economics Report. See parts of the comic Think and Grow Rich on our website learningenglish.voanews.com. Im Chris Cruise.

Chinese Graduates Face Tight Job Market as Economy Slows

China will have a record number of graduates moving into the job market this summer. Seven million people will finish their studies this year and begin to think about career. But China's economy is slowing down, chances for jobs are not good for many new graduates. On a recent day, many job seekers were lined up at a hotel near some of Beijing's major schools, they were waiting to speak with recruiters about jobs with software, information technology and engineering companies. One of the people at the job fair was An Tingting, a recent graduate from Henan province, she is 22-year-old. She came to Beijing recently to take an information technology training course. "I have been looking for jobs the past two weeks and I think that it is indeed hard because I graduated from a vocational school, so the level of my education is pretty low. Also, I did not study software in college, I studied education, so it is more difficult for me to find an IT job." New graduates also face competition from more than 200,000 students who graduated last year and are still looking for jobs. Hu Xingdou is an economist at the Beijing Institute of Technology. He says only 30 percent of graduates can sign a contract and be employed immediately, he says the majority of students remain unemployed and looking for work. And it's not just the number of graduates that is making the job search difficult. After ten years of high growth, Chinas economy is slowing. Chinese leaders say they are struggling to keep growth at about seven percent a year. But Hu Xingdou says the biggest problem is the structure of chinese industry. He says there are many places in China where graduate students are needed, but are not willing to go.

Back at the job fair, Xie Zhiyong says he already has a job, but he is looking for another because he does not like his current work environment. He says it is easy to find jobs if you have some experience. Xie studied bio-technology in Jiangxi province and graduated two years ago. Recently, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called on companies to give more opportunities to new graduates. In response, some private enterprises have announced increases in their hiring of new graduates. Observers say the government could go even further by giving private companies tax incentives and funding . They say the government could also try to encourage new graduates to work in smaller cities away from the coast.

And that's the Education Report from VOA Learning English, I'm Bob Doughty