Science briefs: The music we play while drinking a cold one alters how we think it tastes

A well-curated jukebox and a frosty beer have long gone hand-in-hand, but they may be more intertwined than we imagined. Research suggests that listening to certain music while drinking a beer can directly affect how we perceive that beer to taste. For example, if you're listening to high-pitched music while sipping a Budweiser, that beer might seem to taste sweeter than it actually does. Or if you're listening to deep, bass-heavy music, you might think the beer is bitterer and more alcoholic than it is. That is what was found in a study set to be published in September in the journal Food Quality and Preference.

When Greenland's melting glaciers lose large chunks of ice, it's a violent process. Last year, for instance, scientists documented gigantic glacial earthquakes. But large masses of ice falling into the waters of Greenland's fjords can also create destructive tsunamis, albeit of a relatively small scale (compared with how big open ocean tsunamis can get). A study has found that at least one notable Greenland glacier, these tsunamis appear to be getting worse as melting advances. In a closely studied 2014 event, glacier Eqip Sermia lost what the researchers calculate to be 900,000 cubic meters of ice in a landslide from its 656-foot-tall ice cliff face. That loss — which is not very big for a glacier — created a sudden tsunami wave of 164 feet in height. "This is like a bulldozer at 30 meters a second, going into this water, and pushing it forward," said Martin P. Lüthi of the University of Zurich in Switzerland.