Investigators from the NIH and Johns Hopkins University took six jazz players, gave them a custom-built non-ferromagnetic piano keyboard, containing 35 full size plastic piano keys and a plastic casing, and then stuck them into an fMRI machine:

A pair of Johns Hopkins and government scientists have discovered that when jazz musicians improvise, their brains turn off areas linked to self-censoring and inhibition, and turn on those that let self-expression flow.
In a report published Feb. 27 in Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE, the scientists from the University’s School of Medicine and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications Disorders describe their curiosity about the possible neurological underpinnings of the almost trance-like state jazz artists enter during spontaneous improvisation.
“When jazz musicians improvise, they often play with eyes closed in a distinctive, personal style that transcends traditional rules of melody and rhythm,” says Charles J. Limb, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a trained jazz saxophonist himself. “It’s a remarkable frame of mind,” he adds, “during which, all of a sudden, the musician is generating music that has never been heard, thought, practiced or played before. What comes out is completely spontaneous.”
Though many recent studies have focused on understanding what parts of a person’s brain are active when listening to music, Limb says few have delved into brain activity while music is being spontaneously composed.
Curious about his own “brain on jazz,” he and a colleague, Allen R. Braun, M.D., of NIDCD, devised a plan to view in real time the brain functions of musicians improvising…
Because fMRI uses powerful magnets, the researchers designed the unconventional keyboard with no iron-containing metal parts that the magnet could attract. They also used fMRI-compatible headphones that would allow musicians to hear the music they generate while they’re playing it.
Each musician first took part in four different exercises designed to separate out the brain activity involved in playing simple memorized piano pieces and activity while improvising their music. While lying in the fMRI machine with the special keyboard propped on their laps, the pianists all began by playing the C-major scale, a well-memorized order of notes that every beginner learns. With the sound of a metronome playing over the headphones, the musicians were instructed to play the scale, making sure that each volunteer played the same notes with the same timing.
In the second exercise, the pianists were asked to improvise in time with the metronome. They were asked to use quarter notes on the C-major scale, but could play any of these notes that they wanted.
Next, the musicians were asked to play an original blues melody that they all memorized in advance, while a recorded jazz quartet that complemented the tune played in the background. In the last exercise, the musicians were told to improvise their own tunes with the same recorded jazz quartet.
Limb and Braun then analyzed the brain scans. Since the brain areas activated during memorized playing are parts that tend to be active during any kind of piano playing, the researchers subtracted those images from ones taken during improvisation. Left only with brain activity unique to improvisation, the scientists saw strikingly similar patterns, regardless of whether the musicians were doing simple improvisation on the C-major scale or playing more complex tunes with the jazz quartet.
The scientists found that a region of the brain known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a broad portion of the front of the brain that extends to the sides, showed a slowdown in activity during improvisation. This area has been linked to planned actions and self-censoring, such as carefully deciding what words you might say at a job interview. Shutting down this area could lead to lowered inhibitions, Limb suggests.
The researchers also saw increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, which sits in the center of the brain’s frontal lobe. This area has been linked with self-expression and activities that convey individuality, such as telling a story about yourself.

Public Library of Science ONE paper: Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation
Johns Hopkins press release…

Timothy Lu, a graduate student at MIT, was awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for developing a bacteriophage, which, in conjunction with antibiotics, can become a potent weapon against drug resistant bacteria.

Lu has engineered bacteriophage to boost antibiotic effectiveness. The bacteriophage carries DNA that codes for factors that target bacterial gene networks, which former treatments failed to reach, and destroys bacterial antibiotic resistance mechanisms. The weakened bacterial defenses enable antibiotics to perform better. Administered together, Lu’s bacteriophage and antibiotics have the potential to eliminate nearly 30,000 times more bacteria than antibiotics alone, including cells that survive antibiotic-only treatment. This combination treatment also thwarts development of stronger antibiotic resistance, which can extend the lifetime of existing and future antibiotic drugs.
Lu also applied his work with bacteriophage to create a new technique for reducing harmful biofilms, which are slimy layers of bacteria that develop on the surfaces of medical, industrial and food processing equipment and are difficult to penetrate and remove. Current treatment methods to penetrate biofilms can involve peptides or enzymes, which must be administered systemically and are costly. Medical devices infected by biofilms, such as replacement hip joints or pacemakers, often have to be removed surgically.
Lu invented enzymatically-active bacteriophage that directly target the infection site, where they can simultaneously penetrate the biofilm’s protective slime layer and kill the bacteria underneath. “Think of it as a Trojan Horse,” he explained. “First you sneak into the bacteria and use it to overproduce enzymes precisely where they are needed most in order to overwhelm and break up the biofilm slime. Once the slime is disrupted, the bacteriophage then move in and kill the bacteria.”
“As a physician who has treated patients with resistant bacterial infections, I am well aware of the devastating effect they have on morbidity and mortality,” added Collin M. Stultz, associate professor of biomedical engineering in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and one of Lu’s recommenders for the award. “Tim has developed a series of methods that can be used to treat such problematic infections.”
In tests, Lu’s platform proved greater than 99.997 percent effective at destroying biofilms – a significant improvement over current treatment options. “The ultimate goal is to develop a sustainable source of antibacterial therapies that are effective and easy to produce at low cost, and will last us through the 21st century,” said Lu.
According to Lu, his engineered enzymatically-active bacteriophage could be initially applied in food processing settings to kill food-borne bacteria, such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) that contaminate spinach and cause severe illness when ingested. In line with these hopes, there is evidence that U.S. regulatory authorities are warming up to the therapeutic use of bacteriophage. For example, in 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first U.S. treatment for Listeria contamination of processed meats using natural bacteriophage.

Press release: Bacteria beware: MIT student invents knock-out punch for antibiotic resistance…