Ears Wide Open: AEI Bulletin, Number 1

Rap Signs Spur Skateboarders to Quiet Down - Skateboarders passing through Parkgate Community Center in North Vancouver, a condo development with quaint brick pathways, were creating a racket. So, the local park department created signs, painted on old skateboards, that let them know that their noise was a problem:
Yo.....skater, Seriously speakin’, We like your kick flips, But your trucks are squeakin’
The noise is loud, And the old folks are freakin’, They can’t take a nap, The blood pressure’s peakin’
Laughin’ and talkin’, While you’re WALKIN’, When you do that, Then nobody’s squawkin’
Though the signs were soon stolen, boarders have continued to walk since their posting. Source: District of North Vancouver website [WEBSITE]

Solitary Orca Continues to Perplex, Delight BC Fjord - A six year old orca that has been living in Nootka Sound on the west coast of British Columbia for over four years continues to stir controversy. Fishermen grumble about Luna's tendency to target and break their fish-finder sonar units, likely in response to being annoyed by the sounds, but many locals enjoy the friendly interactions that have become common at dockside and from boats. Local indigenous Mowachaht/Muchalaht band members resisted an attempted capture last summer; the Canadian DFO planned to try to reunite Luna with his family as it passed by in open waters, but there was much concern that if the attempt failed, Luna would end up in captivity. Band members "sang their hearts out" until Luna slipped from the net and took refuge among their canoes. A new plan being floated involves using acoustic stimulation to provide an engaging alternative to pestering fishermen; meanwhile, First Nation members have succeeded in encouraging Luna to explore beyond the mouth of the Sound, raising hopes for a natural encounter with his pod next summer. Source: LA Times, 12/25/05 [READ ARTICLE]

If It's Too Loud, You're Too Young - When he was 12, a Welsh man was annoyed by a high-pitched whine in a factory that none of the adults around him could hear. Now 39, he has taken the lesson he learned that day - that children can hear sounds at higher frequencies than adults can - to fashion a novel device that he hopes will provide a solution to the eternal problem of obstreperous teenagers who hang around outside stores and cause trouble. The device, called the Mosquito ("It's small and annoying," the inventor said), emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that, he says, can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away. Source: Collision Detection, 11/29 [READ POST] NYTimes, 11/29/05 [READ ARTICLE]

Iceberg Song Heard - Researchers have recorded a very deep-toned "song" caused by water currents being squeezed through crevaces in an iceberg that had been slowed to near a stop after grounding on an underwater peninsula. The tones are extremely low, less than 1Hz, far below human hearing, but when speeded up to raise their pitch, changing pitch and texture are found. Some parts sound like whales, or, as the researchers suggest, an orchestra tuning up; other parts the scientists charitably compare to a swam of bees, though some may hear it as more akin to flatulance or the whine of engines. Source: Reuters/MSNBC, 11/24/05 [READ ARTICLE] Science, 11/25/05 [READ ABSTRACT] [DOWNLOAD SOUND FILE(wav)]

Israeli Sonic Booms Target Civilian Populations - In response to a challenge from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, the Israeli military is justifying its practice of triggering sonic booms over the Gaza strip. The booms, which can resemble the sounds of rocket attacks, are meant to "engender fear among terrorists planning to attempt to fire rockets, deceive, create disinformation and a sense of threat and confusion," according to the government. IAF warplanes set off sonic booms over Gaza at all hours of the day and night, though they refrain from supersonic flights over Israel. The head of the Gaza group, Dr. Eyad Sarraj, a psychiatrist, wrote in a medical opinion that the sonic booms have serious effects on Gaza children, including anxiety, panic, fear, poor concentration and low academic success, according to a statement. He also said that the number of miscarriages increases during periods of frequent sonic booms. Israel has long used sonic booms to rattle Palestinians in times of tension and violence, maintaining the practice since its pullout from Gaza in September. Source: Haaretz, 11/14/05 [READ ARTICLE]

Cruise Ship Targets Pirates with Acoustic Weapon - The crew of a luxury cruise ship used a sonic weapon that blasts earsplitting noise in a directed beam while being attacked by a gang of pirates off the eastern coast of Africa, the cruise line says. The Seabourn Spirit had a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, installed as a part of its defense systems, said Bruce Good, a spokesman for Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line. The Spirit was about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia when pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns as they tried to get onboard. The LRAD is a so-called "non-lethal weapon" developed for the U.S. military after the deadly 2000 attack on the USS Cole off Yemen as a way to keep operators of small boats from approaching U.S. warships. The devices have been deployed on commercial and naval vessels worldwide since summer 2003. Source: Houston Chronicle, 11/8/05 [READ ARTICLE]

Injured Man Has iPod in the Brain - Seven years ago Reginald King was lying in a hospital bed recovering from bypass surgery when he first heard the music. It began with a pop tune, and others followed. Mr. King heard everything from cabaret songs to Christmas carols. "I asked the nurses if they could hear the music, and they said no," said Mr. King, a retired sales manager in Cardiff, Wales. "I got so frustrated," he said. "They didn't know what I was talking about and said it must be something wrong with my head. And it's been like that ever since." Each day, the music returns. "They're all songs I've heard during my lifetime," said Mr. King, 83. "One would come on, and then it would run into another one, and that's how it goes on in my head. It's driving me bonkers, to be quite honest." . . . Dr. Griffiths discovered a network of regions in the brain that became more active as the hallucinations became more intense. "What strikes me is that you see a very similar pattern in normal people who are listening to music," he said. The main difference is that musical hallucinations don't activate the primary auditory cortex, the first stop for sound in the brain. When Dr. Griffith's subjects hallucinated, they used only the parts of the brain that are responsible for turning simple sounds into complex music. These music-processing regions may be continually looking for signals in the brain that they can interpret, Dr. Griffiths suggested. When no sound is coming from the ears, the brain may still generate occasional, random impulses that the music-processing regions interpret as sound. They then try to match these impulses to memories of music, turning a few notes into a familiar melody. (much more, detailed feature) Source: NYTimes, 7/12/05 [READ ARTICLE]

Cone of Silence Arrives in Offices - Maxwell Smart's "cone of silence" is finally a reality. Two people in an office here were having a tête-à-tête, but it was impossible for a listener standing nearby to understand what they were saying. The conversation sounded like a waterfall of voices, both tantalizingly familiar and yet incomprehensible. The cone of silence, called Babble, is actually a device composed of a sound processor and several speakers that multiply and scramble voices that come within its range. About the size of a clock radio, the first model is designed for a person using a phone, but other models will work in open office space. Source: NYTimes/BoingBoing, 5/31/05 [READ ARTICLE]

Ears Wide Open

The Quarterly Bulletin of the Acoustic Ecology Institute

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