welcome to tomorrow today the science show on d w coming up. the human voice can reveal a lot about us and that makes it of great interest to big business. how computer games can help reverse some of the effects of aging in the brain. and we join a research expedition in the south china sea where german ship has been studying the effects of pollution. all along but the population then was you know very small new york too high or low relaxed or upset the way our voice is perceived may depend on the culture in which we live. but all voices have one thing in common they reveal

a lot about the emotions of the person talking. every thought is unique that means software developers can use it as a way of identifying us rather like a fingerprint. the person calling this hotline at a swiss financial services company doesn't need to identify herself within seconds the operator has her name on the screen thanks to a voice print system used by the company and customers have to say explicitly if they don't want their voice to be stored very few actually object. my name is cornelia ditto i think voice profiles are crazy. some experts say customers are unaware of the full consequences cloud but the stronger see it also doesn't there's a serious danger of people not understanding the information do they even know what

a voice print is it's more a case of i didn't notice anything negative in my opinion there's no way you can call that consent to see. our voices reveal a lot about us information that big business is keen to use in job applications for example. what i like best about my job is the variety and this job interview is being conducted by a computer program using artificial intelligence it analyzes a 3 minute speech sampled by applicants to assess their personal character and determine whether they're suitable for the position they have a number of firms are testing the software voice based biometric analysis is said to revolutionize recruitment practices that's according to its developer at least as iraq based tech start up. a lot more about the individual before i even see them i can detect their identity and personality without even meeting them if. the

human voice contains thousands of characteristic details the company says that combined with a video analysis software can create a profile for the individuals personality extroverted rational creative or conscientious the content of what they talk about is irrelevant but not everyone's applauding this brave new job interviewer. that's not how you find a suitable candidate it's not something you can delegate to a machine humans have the empathy the social skills and the gut feeling about who will fit into the team best sheens can't do that. across the border in germany this company produces software designed to analyze a customer's mood. man honest my name is doug. i'm the founder and managing director of idea again this intelligent voice analysis means looking into that person thought to understand their mental and emotional make

a. toast and it looks not only at what they're saying but above all how. the software listens to the voice to determine whether the individual is sad or angry or perhaps upbeat or relaxed. a swiss call center is testing another tool that supplies a real time appraisal of how angry the constable is. the busier the customer is very annoyed and in response the agent is being especially cordial but of. work . the point is to calm down irate callers another option is to make them a special offer the developer even claims its software can detect depression or burn out early on from someone's voice the company also insists that individuals should be informed of what happens to their audience data our speech reveals

information that others would not normally know which is why voice prints and profiles could become a very lucrative commodity. it's not only our voice that betrays our feelings our facial expressions due to. joy fear disgust surprise sadness or anger can all be read on our faces. linda from india asked why do our feelings sometimes produce tears. why do we cry in moments of intense joy or sadness. the fluid in our eyes serves to clean the cornea and keep it moist when we cry for emotional reasons . big drops are formed these are hard to produce deliberately. take the tears we produce when we are upset for example others around us immediately know

we're upset that's why scientists believe crying is an instinctive form of non-verbal communication a way of sounding the alarm. but that hasn't been clarified definitively in the end we don't know exactly why we shed tears when sad happy or angry but we do know is that these emotional tears have a different chemical composition to the fluid secreted to clean our eyes. psychologists have discovered that people feel an easy crying in the presence of strangers because it signals vulnerability but it can be difficult to hold back the tears when overcome with emotion whether in public or private. lives away our all important lacrimosa glands are not fully developed until we're a couple of weeks old this is why newborns cry without tears they were all manner of reasons why they cry of course but that's a separate issue. and don't forget that crying can be interpreted in different ways

depending on the cultural context of the exception is 2 years of grief which people everywhere can sympathize with. and it turns out that emotional tears can have a beneficial effect scientific tests have shown that people who we are more likely to be offered help than those who remain dry eyes. if outlet is red white i mean i don't even. see you have a science question that you've always wanted onset we're happy to help out with a little less as a video text over smell if we answer it on the show we'll send you a little surprise as a thank you can i just ask. for most stories. about science and to send us your questions check us out online on twitter and on facebook.

we asked our viewers on facebook do you have a special memory you'd like to share with us. on shared a childhood memory when i was little he rose oh village was lovely it was like heaven for us nature gave us all we needed. a new day a remembers a christmas gathering with her family where the cousins played and the adults danced told dawn and she saw her grandmother dance a bump a dunce that's a bit like a waltz. olivia remembers going for a walk with his father who lifted him up to get past a puddle that made him laugh a lot. thanks for your comments and your memory. scientifically speaking our memory is made up of facts and information. our sensory memory retains information for just long enough to transfer it to our working memory where it's

stored for a few minutes. our long term memory stores information for our days and often many years. our memory can also play tricks on us. human memory is a huge archive and works like a well oiled machine well most of the time. but not always. sometimes there are things we just cannot retrieve. a lot of memories learned on us uninvited. and there are some recently come. here are 3 classic tricks our memories play on us. first up the tip of the tongue phenomenon something we've all experienced at some point. something.

this is what's going on upstairs a recollection of one particular person is stored in a number of locations their appearance in the visual center sound of their voice in the order tree center. of syllables in their name in the language center. defy the person the brain has to dig up and piece together a sufficient number of those features and that's where it's easy to get confused. or similar sounding might 1st pop into your head because it's available soon. so what's the solution want to answer to turn your attention to something completely different. of course. trick number 2 factory memory that is memories linked

to. it's not just unsolicited visual memories that sometimes bother us. but i know that from again and suddenly you might be haunted by a distinctly welcome memory. why is that it's pretty simple senses smell is the only one directly connected to the brain's emotional center the i make tiller and also to the adjacent hippocampus the area where memories are created. there for odors and the recollections associated with them particularly vivid memory cues. number 3 the. memories that refused to go. it can be very annoying like a song you just have to sing along to. songs that you can't get out of your head tend to resurface when we're busy doing mundane tasks and working memory has

some freak of cassidy. to stave off boredom our brain browses through its archives and pulls out a specific song in a similar style to a record player and in our heads we are hear music we are doing on it we absolutely hate. this triggers a stimulus that makes us repeat the melody all never expect to ourselves that creates a never ending loop as your singing leads to you hearing the tune in turn only which in turn and courage is for the singing. the remedy. researchers recommend listening to the song once through to the bitter end. and then. bury the memory deep deep down in your brains archive.

studies have shown that playing video games can have an effect on our brain. in regions of the brain involved in attention memory and visual spatial skills for example can be enhanced. let's take a closer look at that in a moment. but 1st we checked in with alfie was on facebook to ask them the question . do you like video games and do you play them yourself. neil replied i don't like them. and 3. that's nicer. to own likes to play minecraft and says it can really give your spatial awareness

a boost. yes wanted to know more her daughter plays minecraft and it's not easy for her to understand. alberto explained that the video game helps children develop creativity because they design all sorts of structures shakes and passions. from indonesia replied it's good kids in my country learn english through games some games also teach culture science and history and it enhances hand eye coordination. studies suggest that's true and gaming can even improve feel memory. doing a mail round in the name of science. these women and a humbug retirement home taking part in a memory research project by gaming. mission

accomplished. these gamers are no beginners. looking to domiciles with the wall i started out with crazy chicken which is great. now i spend more time on memory training games which i played around out of the day. i have them on my laptop and i always want to sneak in one last game that's the last half hour before i go to bed. that should be huge no wonder she's in the lead here. the more a box is a collection of computer games developed especially for seniors the video being projected onto the screen for the mail carrier game might seem banal but the images are said to help which even if the brain 'd expects that the homburg universe. medical center are investigating whether they really do combat certain aspects of aging professor you're going to ghana has long used cognitive tests and our ice guns to analyze the effect of computer games on the brain you have children but in

earlier studies with young people we found that those who play video games a lot exhibited a growth in volume in particular areas of the brain. that came as a surprise we performed a range of follow up studies and we were able to show that certain elements in a video game have a big impact in particular it's the aspect of spatial navigation which appears to have an effect on the plasticity of the hippocampus c.t. if you do this hippocampus. that's a part of the brain that's vitally important for our memory. given the right workout the hippocampus can evidently be kept in shape well into old age. or video games often resemble the real world you move around in 3 dimensional spaces navigation is a complex issue for the brain and video games are designed for people to have fun with and of. getting to grips with new challenges and

experiences are of vital element to keeping your memory up to scratch. the. insights confirmed by professor get. from the german center for neurodegenerative diseases interest in. every experience we have or action we take leaves traces in the brain and forms the basis for what we're capable of in the future or what we're seeing is that a brain that is used and trained as a greater resilience to problems that emerge in old age out of. get kampelman and his team were able to prove that connection in tests with mice. where there was more activity among. animals in a more stimulating environment the growth of new nerve cells was excel aerated in the hippocampus. the interesting thing about the hippocampus is that the

generation of new cells changes according to activity in the hippocampus there seems to be a mechanism that detects the current state of functions and says to the stem cell hey dude time to divide we need young nerve cells. meaning that growth of new cells can be boosted intentionally our brain is not a fixed structure it's in part a product of our ongoing personal experiences it adapts constantly to them also through the creation and interconnection of many nerve cells. so we should keep on training our brain for what we want to use it for later and that means every day things simple things that make you happy and the things that push back your boundaries a little so your breaking new ground your entire life. the cognitive tests an m.r.i.

scans at the 100 university medical center show that computer games can compensate for a decrease in mental and physical activity in old age at least in the brain. where the demand for patients who have dementia or want to prevented physical exercise is helpful. what we're seeing with video games is a bit different we're observing similar effects on the brain structure but the person isn't getting exercise but you know test subjects we've all thought the hippocampus is grown dog you should be you are an invalid so after a certain amount of training with tasks you perform in a video game create changes in the relevant areas of the brain. and with the hippocampus. that above all effects spatial navigation and that's why gaining is good for the memory real world movement or simulation appear to have the same effect. the challenges

that large cities pose to the environment are very real hong kong for example is one of the most densely settled urban areas worldwide. like many other mega cities in the region hong kong is located on the coast so much of the city's waste water in south in the ocean. a team of researchers went to the south china sea to study the impact of that waste. this german research ship is in the waters off hong kong on board oceanographer you're one of our new york and her team of scientists they're here to study water pollution of toxic substances flushed into the sea primarily down the polar river hong kong lies near its mouth. the pearl river is a special area almost 100000000 people live in the region and we want to analyze

their impact on the water. it's comparable to the baltic sea region which also happens to be home to $100000000.00. image. the aim is to identify the pollutants in the south china sea determine their quantities and find out what impact they're having. for 4 weeks the team will be collecting water at more than 70 spots using best probe at depths of up to 3000 meters. looking for antibiotics pesticides toxic carbon and chlorine compounds micro plastics hormones u.v. filters found in sunscreen products and many other pollutants. the probe is fitted with a range of measuring instruments and $24.00 large containers but take water samples at various depths for later analysis. scooping

water out of the ocean and processing the samples is a complex procedure involving plenty of modern technology. tapping the samples is carefully planned. that has to do with the depth at which they were taken and what will be done with the water. samples have been taken to the lab but not for analysis that would take too long. every day on the research vessel costs money so the teams immediate aim is to get as many samples as possible and those samples will add up to 5000 of liters of water but they won't be shipped back to germany only the residues filtered out of the seawater in the on board lab . the analysis of those residues will take place months later once the team has returned to germany.

and this is what those residues look like. from our get out of here to clash if you compare the plates here the difference between the open sea and coastal waters is clear. the colors of these samples indicate a lot of fertilizer in the water in the the coast. right nutrients that generate a lot of biological matter which will eventually sink to the bottom mark you know us is already saying. when that matter decomposes it uses up oxygen in the water that in turn deprives marine creatures of the oxygen they need. at night the scientists and crew hoist a speck. szell net on board that had been lowered to a depth of 700 metres. it's used to collect plant on which ends up in containers carried in a basket beneath the net. it's heavy

and it's hard work getting it all on board. the actions of a very happy couple i got samples from all depths and now i'm going to take a look at them they're immediates unquote. plantain are microorganisms that many fish feed on even small amounts of pollutants implying sun can enter the food chain and eventually end up on our dinner plates. some plant on species form shells of council. yes in papers and we'll examine some of those shells to see what substances pollutants have been trapped in the. conflict conceiving and i'm looking into another world. in the depths lots of

things are going on at the same time among different groups. of the fish some some eat and compete with each other getting even a tiny glimpse of that is really very exciting. for a fish just fun. the scientists know that marine life is in dire need of protection . in a few months time we'll have more precise information on just how polluted the waters off hong kong are. and that might help with the development of strategies to mitigate the impact of densely populated regions on the oceans. another major challenge with facing as the world's hunger for energy some scientists believe that nuclear fusion could help solve the global energy crisis sustainably join us for that and more next time on tomorrow today by.

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