AvatarKaitlin Gates

Kaitlin is a freelance multimedia journalist with a background in newspaper and broadcasting. She has a degree in journalism and psychology, enjoys writing, editing, animals, music and movies/TV. Along with Simplemost, she also writes for Don't Waste Your Money, where she covers deals and product reviews. When she's not writing, you can usually find her on her yoga mat, whipping up a new vegetarian dish or at a wine tasting with friends. You can email her at [email protected] or find her on Facebook at Facebook.com/KaitlinGatesWrites.

Here’s What It Sounds Like When You Remove The Music From ‘We Are The Champions’

These days, auto-tuning songs from less-than-spectacular artists is nothing new. In fact, it’s pretty much expected most of the time.

(Seriously—we’re auto-tuning everything, even the news.)

So what happens when you take it a few steps backward and actually remove everything except the vocals (non auto-tuned, of course)? We’re reluctant to listen to most new artists that way, but lucky for us, Playback.fm’s YouTube channel chose to do just that with Freddie Mercury.

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Getty Images | Jeff J Mitchell

Amazing Voice Commands Attention

Mercury, of the band Queen, passed away in 1991, but his amazing voice, songs and style continue to capture people’s attention around the world.

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Playback.fm edited four concert films, including a rare recording session of “We Are The Champions,” and synced them to isolated vocals. It simply doesn’t get more a capella than that.

Mercury, whose real name is Farrokh Bulsara, was born in Tanzania in 1946 and studied piano in boarding school in India. He moved to London in the 1960s and befriended multiple musicians, including two of his future bandmates, drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May.

RELATED: Randy Travis’ Performance Of ‘Amazing Grace’ Brings Audience To Tears

The Birth Of Queen

After being in two different bands, the Hectics and Ibex, Mercury reunited with Taylor and May and, along with bassist John Deacon, they formed Queen. Some of the band’s most notable songs include “We Will Rock You,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Are The Champions.”

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The band went on to win numerous awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

RELATED: You have got to see this adorable (and hilarious) video of a little girl singing “Bohemian Rhapsody”!

Scientists Study Mercury’s Wide Vocal Range

Since Mercury’s death, scientists have gone on to study his incredible vocal range. According to The Daily Mail, the 2016 study of his voice in the Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology used archive recordings and a singer to imitate Mercury’s voice.

Many people believed Mercury’s vocal range to be over four octaves, but the the lead author of the study, Austrian voice scientist Christian Herbst, says his vocal range was ‘normal for a healthy adult—not more, not less.’

Researchers say Mercury was probably a baritone, but sang as a tenor and had incredible control over his vocal production technique.

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One thing’s for sure, Freddie Mercury will continue to be known as one of the greatest singers in Rock and Roll history.

RELATED: Why Bassists Are The Most Important Member Of A Band—According To Science

So Many Epic Works In Queen’s Music Catalogue

Here are the other Queen songs we mentioned, for your listening pleasure:

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This Man Traveled 10,000 Miles To Dance With 100 Strangers In This Hilarious And Heartwarming Video

One of the greatest things about technology and the internet is the way it can bring people from all countries, cultures and walks of life together.

It’s hard to find a more accurate example of that power than this YouTube video entitled “100 People of Dance.” ProjectOneLife, aka Matt Bray, uploaded “100 People of Dance” as the third and final installment of dance videos from his account, including one titled “Top 100 Places of Dance.”

In “100 People of Dance,” 100 different people dance the same routine to the song “Gone” by JR JR.

The video begins with Bray dancing alone, then more and more people join in from places including parks, bridges, beaches and streets. Bray shows everyone how to do the dance, then they take it from there.

In the nearly four-minute video, day fades to night and night becomes day again as Bray and strangers perform the choreographed routine. Eventually, the dancing strangers do the dance alone before Bray joins larger groups of dancers for a finale.

Bray states in the video description that it “took two months of filming and a month and a half was spent living out on the road driving all around the USA and Canada, I drove a little over 10,000 miles.”

Bray writes that he is thankful to everyone who danced with him and helped him film the video. He writes that he met “so many amazing people, got to see so many friends, it was an experience of a life time.”

Bray writes on his YouTube account that his channel is about “living life to the fullest and having fun.” He says he documents himself having fun with his friends and crossing things off his bucket list.

If making people smile all over the world is part of that bucket list, we’d say he’s accomplished that goal!

Here’s How To Slow Down The Aging Process, According To A Nobel Prize-Winning Biologist

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You’re getting older. Sorry, but it happens—to everyone. The effects of aging, however, don’t have to accompany the passing years—at least not as rapidly. A new video from Business Insider and Nobel Prize-winning biologist Elizabeth Blackburn explains the aging process and how we can slow down its effects.

Blackburn won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine—along with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak—“for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.”

Telomeres hold the key to the effects of aging. They protect our DNA, but over time, wear down. When that happens, we age. Everyone will age, but some of us age faster than others. That’s where taking care of our telomeres comes into play.

In the video, Blackburn says we have the power to “slow down the onset or likelihood of getting diseases of aging.” To better explain how our body ages, she uses a simple example:

“Picture, if you will, a shoelace and at the end of the shoelace, there are little protective tips, often plastic,” she says in the video. “And if you imagine the shoelace is your DNA, then the protective tips at the end are called telomeres. Now, this matters for our cells because if the DNA is damaged by losing the telomeres when they get too short, then the cells can’t renew themselves.”

Blackburn says it is the damaged telomeres that speed up aging and particularly the onset of many of the diseases we get when we age—“like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, dementias, even stroke and lung diseases.”

If we keep our telomeres healthy, we can slow down the process of deterioration. The good news? We have the power to actively help protect our telomeres.

Blackburn says just getting exercise helps keep telomeres from getting damaged, and you don’t have to be a marathon runner (unless you want to). Simply walking briskly three times a week for 45 minutes is enough, she says.

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Adobe

Diet also plays a huge role. Make sure you’re eating healthy foods—like fruits, vegetables and nuts. Blackburn also suggests the Mediterranean diet, which continues to be praised by doctors and other health professionals.

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The fact that exercise and diet help maintain your telomeres also explains why staying active and eating well have such good effects on your health.

“We can see inside the cells that they’re helping to slow down cell aging because they’re helping to slow down the rate the telomeres wear down,” Blackburn says.

So if you needed yet another reason to eat healthy and exercise, here you go: It will keep you young.

To learn more, check out Blackburn’s book: “The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer.“