It’s not just what we hear, but how we hear it: The brain responds more intensely to positive sounds it hears from the left side, researchers have found in a new study (pdf)published in Frontiers in Neuroscience by the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Brain scans of thirteen participants — with no history of neurological issues or hearing loss — revealed that “spatial cues appear to render emotional vocalizations more salient.”

What does that mean? Positive human vocalizations like laughter create greater stimuli in the auditory cortex (a network of areas in the brain responsible for processing auditory inputs) than both neutral or negative sounds, and sounds heard from the front, back, or right side. While the reason for this difference is yet to be determined, speculations like brain bias for left-handed people were denied by the simple fact that nine out of the 13 participants are right-handed.

This builds on previous research: The new study adds to previous findings which indicate that the source of sound affects the type of emotion we attribute to it. For instance, sounds we hear coming from behind tend to be perceived as threatening or alarming — which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, an article by Science Alert points out.

Nvidia is doubling down on AI: US-based chipmaker Nvidia unveiled a lineup of AI-supported systems, softwares, and products yesterday, according to a company release. Speaking at a conference, founder and CEO Jensen Huang announced his company will offer an AI supercomputer platform, DGX GH200, which can allow “​​developers [to] build large language models for generative AI chatbots, complex algorithms for recommender systems, and graph neural networks used for fraud detection and data analytics.”

The company has been on a tear: Nvidia was on the verge of a USD 1 tn valuation last week — which would have been a first for the chip industry — after delivering a sales forecast of USD 11 bn in the second quarter of its fiscal years, far above analyst estimates. The higher-than-expected forecast was driven by data center chips designed to handle AI tasks, as the company shifts from being primarily a maker of computer graphics chips to becoming a key player in the AI industry.

Supernova sighting? Betelgeuse, a reddish star alongside Orion, is going to (eventually) explode, causing a celestial extravaganza known as a supernova, an astrophysicist at the Flatiron Institute in New York City said, according to Scientific American. More recently, the star has been shining brighter, a 50% increase, an exceptional difference that has skywatchers and pro astronomers intrigued and excited.

The explosion itself promises to be a spectacle — when it happens. By celestial standards, this historical event will happen “soon” — but by average human standards, it’s a far-off prospect that will materialize in another 10k-100k years. But science helps us imagine the transformation: It would begin with milky particles surrounding the star which would revolve over our planet and get picked up by detectors until the actual “fireworks begin.” The resulting light would be so luminous it would be akin to the brightness of the moon. Nevertheless, what scientists are certain about is that it will create permanent change to our sky.

Cycle of light has been shortened to more than half: Ancient Greeks and Aboriginals have made a record of Betelguese’s cycle by following how many days its brightness increased and waned. Based on more modern times, scientists have noted the sudden drop in the star’s cycle to 130 days from 400 days, sparking interest by astronomers and physicists, thus, bringing its “explosion day” a lot closer than previously theorized. The star’s development is due to it spewing out a massive blob of gas and dust which allowed other surrounding plasma to enter its center and for magnetic fields to do their magic leading to this unusual change.

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