You may have noticed that our weekly Weird Science column has disappeared. What we're going to do instead is try to incorporate a few stories from the stranger side of science into our regular weekly mix. We'll kick this off by having a look at what happens when Mozart meets your colon.
Colonoscopies are a key bit of preventative medicine; adenomas caught during a colonoscopy are removed before they get the chance to develop into threatening cancer, and failure to catch them raises the risk of serious problems later. So, anything that can improve adenoma detection rates would be a good thing.
Listening to music may be able to do just that. Two experienced endoscopists were tracked for a year to provide a baseline for their typical adenoma detection rates. Then the two performed a series of 118 additional colonoscopies whle being randomly assigned to listen to music or not. This was not what's called a "blinded" trial (nor a deaf one, for that matter)—the endoscopists were very much aware of whether they were listening to music.
For one, the music didn't seem to make much difference, although being in a study seemed to heighten his performance: he went from a baseline detection rate of 27 percent up to 37 percent without music, 41 percent with. But the second saw a huge shift. From a baseline of just over 20 percent, he went up to 30 percent without music, and a staggering 67 percent with. The only difference between the two is that the one who showed the smaller effect was aware of the outcome as the study proceeded; the other remained blinded to the results until it was complete.
Although the researchers refer to the "Mozart effect," it's not clear what music the endoscopists were actually listening to. For all we know, they were working their way through Senior Editor Nate Anderson's hair metal collection.
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