If the walls of a Venetian orphanage could sing

+ music-triggered insulin production US Edition - Today's top story: Music painted on the wall of a Venetian orphanage will be heard again nearly 250 years later [View in browser]( US Edition | 14 November 2023 [The Conversation] [The Conversation]( Top headlines - [PFAS are seeping into oceans]( - [Are you an impulse giver?]( - [How brains recover from concussions]( Lead story In the summer of 2019, Penn State musicologist Marica S. Tacconi visited Venice’s Ospedaletto, or “Little Hospital,” for the first time. From the 16th century to the turn of the 19th century, the charitable institution took in orphaned girls. Taccino was especially eager to see the orphanage’s music room, which was renowned for its acoustics. As she entered the elegant space, Tacconi found herself drawn to one section of a fresco painted on the wall – a group of four female musicians, one of whom was holding the musical score of an aria from an opera, its notes still legible. [Tacconi’s encounter with the aria]( inspired her to learn more about the rest of the work, the teacher who composed it and the girls in the orphanage who, trained by some of the era’s most famous Italian musicians, likely performed the music to raise money from donors. This December, thanks to Tacconi’s research, the music from the Ospedaletto will be played at a concert in Venice for the first time in hundreds of years. [ [Sign up for our weekly Global Economy & Business newsletter, with interesting perspectives from experts around the world](. ] Nick Lehr Arts + Culture Editor The music room of the Ospedaletto is known for its remarkable acoustics. Marica S. Tacconi [Music painted on the wall of a Venetian orphanage will be heard again nearly 250 years later]( Marica S. Tacconi, Penn State On the wall of an orphanage in Venice, a musicologist encountered a fresco featuring an aria written for an opera. She’s since embarked on a project to bring this forgotten music back. 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Diefenbach, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Concussions can teach researchers a great deal about how the brain recovers after injury and offer insights into how people can promote brain health throughout their lives. - [Mass shootings often put a spotlight on mental illness, but figuring out which conditions should keep someone from having a gun is no easy task]( Arash Javanbakht, Wayne State University Red flag laws are an important step in the right direction, but much more work is needed to determine the role of mental health in the lead-up to and aftermath of mass shootings. Economy + Business - [Amid ‘checkout charity’ boom, some Americans are more likely to be impulse givers than others]( Lauren Dula, Binghamton University, State University of New York; Ruth K. Hansen, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Middle-class consumers and shoppers of color give the most this way. 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