The most infectious pandemic in history and the math related critical brain chemical (γ-aminobutyric acid)

 

A few weeks ago Canadian researchers published a paper on The Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences concerning a study in which they used infectious disease transmission models in order to clarify mechanisms that contribute to the ‘spread’ of songs. 

Nevertheless, the fact that they found that the “most transmissible genre” had a median R0 of 3,430 which is almost 200 times more "infectious" than measles is not as important as the music considerations on the paper published one year ago titled "Dynamical Systems, Celestial Mechanics, and Music: Pythagoras Revisited".  

At the end of the paper, they mentioned the Golden Records (pictured above) that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 having reproduced Sagan´s (who led the committee that was responsible for the content of the records) own words:

"I was delighted with the suggestion of sending a record ... we could send music... Because of the relation between music and mathematics, and the anticipated universality of mathematics, it may be that much more than our emotions are conveyed by the musical offering on the Voyager record" 

Last but not least, and still speaking of mathematics it's rather fascinating that researchers of Oxford University (Department of Experimental Psychology) and Loughborough University (Centre for Mathematical Cognition) recently showed that adolescent students who lack mathematical education exhibited a reduction in a critical brain chemical (γ-aminobutyric acid) in a key brain area that supports maths, problem-solving, memory, learning, and reasoning. 

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/24/e2013155118#sec-5