Mozart can make you smarter

I read a very brief, but very fascinating article, while subbing today: "Does Music Make You Smarter?" adapted by Adrienne Hathoway. I feel I just have to share this new knowledge. After reading the article, I naturally Googled to find out more. I discovered that David Merrell, a teenager, won the Virginia State Fair with an experiment where he subjected mice to either heavy metal or classical music to see how it would affect their ability to run a maze. With 72 mice divided into three groups, Merrell ran each group through the maze and timed their progress. Their final time averaged about ten minutes. Then, he played heavy metal music for one group, classical music for another, and no music for the control group. After four weeks, the control group's average time to finish the maze was down to five minutes, and the classical group finished in just over a minute and a half. Shockingly, the heavy metal group increased their time. It took them half an hour to finish! Not only that, the first time Merrell performed the experiment, he had to cut it short because after three weeks the heavy metal group only had one mouse left. They had become so aggressive that they attacked and killed one another. Though I don't know what research has been done to see what the implications are for humans, I know what music I will and won't be playing for my kids.