You can make it if you try

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today. A carb friendly diet may help lower biological age; new study suggests music has lost its feel over time; and Sony taps nostalgia to revive an ‘80s classic.

Let’s get into it!

A study conducted by researchers at Michigan State University analyzed 40,000 songs from 230 artists released between 1947 and 2024.

Using a tool called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, the researchers scraped the songs’ lyrics for emotional references, such as words associated with anxiety, sadness, anger, love, family, and friends.

They found that over the course of the 77 years, the “feelings” slowly dissipated from the music.

On one hand, the way feeling declined in specific artists’ music could be an indicator of emotional maturity, according to co-author Logan Gibson.

On the other hand, the overall decline as new artists surfaced with less emotion in their songs could be an indication that emotion either stopped resonating with audiences like it used to, or that the music industry believes it doesn’t, and therefore commercializes less of it.

At the same time, while emotions have a broadly smaller presence, some have become more prevalent in music. References to anxiety and isolation had a countervailing trajectory compared to the broader trend, along with anger in some cases.

Sony has officially relaunched the original Walkman headphones, complete with the iconic foam earpads, available in blue and orange (though we all know orange is the way to go).

Wired headphones have made a roaring comeback in recent years, partly due to nostalgia, and partly due to a consumer desire for hardline connection—both literally and metaphorically.

Sony is going all out with these modern classic headphones, which are listed under the name MDR-3R. The metal arms, the foam pads, the wires connecting the headphones to nearly any modern device through a UCB-C port—they’ve got it all.

Sony even retrofitted the audio quality in order to make the headphones replicate the experience of listening to a cassette in 1979. At the same time, some features have also been added to allow for the preferences of modern music listening.

These headphones are available now for $99.99 and are sold in packaging that’s nearly identical to the original, allowing the nostalgia to flow from the very moment these beauties arrive.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Sydney and published in Aging Cell recruited 104 adults between 65 and 75, and learned that a small but significant change in their diets could generate biomarkers indicating a younger biological age.

Chronological age measures the time since a person was born, whereas biological age describes how old a person appears based on several biomarkers, such as blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol levels, inflammation, body mass index, and others.

The researchers divided the participants into four groups. Two groups were fed diets consisting of 50% animal protein, while the other two got 70% of their protein from plants.

Then each of the two were split again, with two given diets that contained fewer fats and more carbohydrates, two were given diets with fewer carbs and more fats.

After four weeks of analysis, the researchers determined the group eating a high-fat diet with more animal-based foods displayed the same biological age as before the study. The other three groups’ biomarkers displayed a younger biological age.

The researchers concluded eating less fat, more carbs, and having a greater focus on plant-based products may help lower a person’s biological age in their later 60s and early 70s.

The only known insurance ledger that backed the steel hull of the R.M.S Titanic is set to be auctioned off by U.K. auction house Henry Aldridge & Son, the world’s premier auctioneer for Titanic and White Star Line memorabilia.

The ledger (pictured above) insured the Titanic’s hull for $100,000, with the insurance period lasting for a year, starting on March 27, 1912. As history would have it, the policy was put to use just 19 days later, and paid in full 30 days after that.

The policy was sold by Atlantic Mutual, which was founded in 1838, and went on to become North America’s leading marine and general insurer by the middle of that century.

According to historical records, no company provided more insurance for the Titanic than Atlantic Mutual, and by the same token, no company paid out more in insurance claims made by the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company—the parent company for the vessel that tragically sank on its maiden voyage.

The auction will take place on Nov. 21, with the document expected to fetch between £30,000 and £50,000.

How odd…🤔

Back by popular demand, it’s another round of Odd One Out! This time we’re quizzing you on actors and characters that don’t belong. Give it a go, with today’s trivia!