【推荐1】Beethoven is a giant of classical music. And the most influential, too—at least, when it comes to piano compositions. That's according to a study in the journal EP J Data Science.

If you're wondering how data analysis could determine something as abstract as cultural influence, it's worth remembering this: Music is the most mathematical of the art form, a lot of which is symbolic. The music is written in symbols that are connected in time.

Juyong Park is a theoretical physicist in South Korea. Park and his colleagues collected 900 piano compositions by 19 composers from 1700 to 1910. Then they used that mathematical quality to their advantage by dividing each composition into what they called “code words”, in other words, a chord. They then compared each chord to the chord or note that came after it, which allowed them to determine how creative composers were at coming up with novel transitions.

The composer with top marks for novelty was Rachmaninoff. But when the researchers looked at those chord transitions across all 19 composers, it was Beethoven who was most heavily borrowed from—meaning at least among the composers in this analysis, his influence was the largest.

Their study comes with some drawbacks. For example, the researchers only considered piano compositions in this work, and by only studying chord transitions, so their conclusions wouldn't relate to artists who were influential in other ways like Bach or Mozart. Park explained, “It's well understood that Mozart's contribution to music comes from the musical forms that he designed. That was not very well reflected by our mathematical modeling.”

As for Park, the results convinced him he has some listening to do. “Of course I listen to music. I like Rachmaninoff’s music, but I have to say I have listened to Beethoven way more than Rachmaninoff. So after this work came out, I ended up buying his whole complete collection.

【推荐2】One of the most dangerous insects you need to watch out for during summer is mosquitoes. But no matter how you try to avoid them, some naturally attract mosquitoes more than others.

One of the most important facts to remember is that mosquitoes track people down by smell and body odour (气味), according to Bart Knols, PhD, a biologist devoted to the study of mosquitoes. The carbon dioxide people breathe out, along with chemicals from the skin, creates an “odour plume” that mosquitoes can detect from up to almost 100 feet away. “Each person gives off more than 300 chemicals from the skin, more than 100 in breathing out,” Knols says.

The specific mixtures on the skin that mosquitoes respond to vary by species. The yellow fever mosquito and Asian tiger mosquito, for example, respond well to lactic acid from skin. African malaria mosquitoes respond to a mix of fatty acids, according to Knols. Your individual mixtures and smells determine how much of a mosquito attraction you are, depending on the mosquito species. The mix of chemicals you produce is only partly in your control. These chemicals depend on your genetic make-up, health condition, diet, skin pH, and so on. “Bacteria on the skin break down the mixtures that we give off through our pores (毛孔), and these are the attractive smells,” Knols says. “So it is not actually we that draw mosquitoes, but the bacteria on our skin.”

Although this is a complex and partly understood phenomenon, Knols says that we do all have a unique smell. There are many folk stories about why some people are more or less attractive to mosquitoes. Some people falsely think the blood type is the cause? and others believe taking vitamin B or eating garlic makes people less attractive to mosquitoes—but Knols notes there’s no scientific data backing up these claims.