Big data is helping unravel the mystery of Beethovan’s metronome, reports Physics World. 

“Big data” has been a buzzword in scientific research for some time, but this week saw it applied to a longstanding puzzle in music history. 

According to Ars Technica, archaeology is exploring how big data could transform the field.

Archaeology is finally catching up with the so-called "digital humanities," as evidenced by a February special edition of the Journal of Field Archaeology, devoted entirely to discussing the myriad ways in which large-scale datasets and associated analytics are transforming the field. 

Big data and machine learning can help archivists organize millions of pages of data, reports Horizon Magazine. 

From wars to weddings, Europe’s history is stored in billions of archival pages across the continent. While many archives try to make their documents public, finding information in them remains a low-tech affair. Simple page scans do not offer the metadata such as dates, names, locations that often interest researchers. Copying this information for later use is also time-consuming.