Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have released findings that show a cross cultural linkage between music and colors:

Mozart's jaunty Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major is most often associated with bright yellow and orange, whereas his dour Requiem in D minor is more likely to be linked to dark, bluish gray. Upbeat music in major keys was consistently paired with happy-looking faces while subdued music in minor keys was paired with sad-looking faces. Similarly, happy faces were paired with yellow and other bright colors and angry faces with dark red hues.

People in both the United States and Mexico linked the same pieces of classical orchestral music with the same colors. This suggests that humans share a common emotional palette – when it comes to music and color – that appears to be intuitive and can cross cultural barriers, UC Berkeley researchers said.

Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station recorded the world's first music video from space, David Bowie's "Space Oddity".

If you haven't wasted at least 5 seconds of your life on 5secondsfilms yet, now's your chance.

NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, gives us a fascinating listen into the lives of these giant ocean creatures:

Male humpback whales sing complex songs in tropical waters during the winter breeding season, but they also sing at higher latitudes at other times of the year.

Forty-three song sessions, each lasting from 30 minutes to eight hours, were used to track individual singing whales. Most of the singers were actively swimming; the patterns and rates of their movement ranged from slow meandering to a faster directional movement. In one case, two singers were tracked at the same time, suggesting a potential reaction by one singer to the presence of the other.

Hear the whales - and other ocean sounds - on NOAA's site.

Research from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas has found that we can learn new songs (or any tasks) faster and better by simply sleeping.

Performance of a musical task improved among pianists whose practice of a new melody was followed by a night of sleep.

The study found, however, that when two similar melodies were practiced one after the other, followed by sleep, any gains in speed and accuracy achieved during practice diminished overnight.

The research is conducted by Dr. Sarah E. Allen and will be published in the journal Psychology of Music.

Many have wondered if the unique voices of violins were actually designed to incorporate speech sounds such as vowels and consonants. Now a Texas A&M University researcher, biochemist Joseph Nagyvary, has provided the first evidence that the Italian violin masters tried to impart specific vowel sounds to their violins. The findings will undoubtedly:

Change how violins are valued.

Help teach students how to improve the quality of their tone production.

Nagyvary was the first to prove that intrument makers Stradivari and Guarneri soaked their instruments in chemicals (such as borax and brine) in order to "protect them from a worm infestation that was sweeping through Italy in the 1700s. By pure accident, the chemicals used to protect the wood had the unintended result of producing the unique sounds that have been almost impossible to duplicate in the past 400 years, and his findings were supported and verified by the American Chemical Society."

The official music video for 'The Stampede', from Russian indie rock band "Biting Elbows", like its successor, is a must see, and features an action packed video game like music video.

And if you haven't already, be sure to check out the follow-up viral video sensation, Bad Motherf***er [WARNING: mature and violent content]

Greenland's 2012 summer ice melt was the largest on record, and lasted two months longer than average. Ice specialist Marco Tedesco visits Greenland every year, and, tired of trying to convey the science of the melting ice with graphs and statistics, he found a way to turn his data into music.

Living on Earth has the story that allows us to hear the ice melting through music.

The LA Times reports:

Sea lions are apparently capable of keeping a beat (though their tastes in music leave something to be desired). A rescued sea lion, rewarded with fish, is seen here bobbing along to songs with different tempos. The study of this dancing sea mammal are detailed in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, and could shed some light on the mysteries behind how rhythm is experienced in the brain.

In the UK, parody is not allowed by copyright laws without the permission of the copyright owner. But in December 2012, the government announced plans to reform the Copyright regime in the UK, including a statutory exception for parody.

A study by Bournemouth University recently found that amateur parody videos make the originals more popular and profitable. The research was commissioned by the Intellectual Property Office, the official government body responsible for granting Intellectual Property rights in the UK, and the results have been used to propose a new copyright exception to allow parody. Key findings:

There is no evidence for economic harm to rightsholders.

The audience size for parody is smaller than the audience for originals; the audience of all parody videos added together accounted for less than 1% of the total audience for the original.

There is a growing market for this type of online parody; parody videos in the study generated up to £2 million in revenue, a portion of which was shared with creators and rightsholders.