Ultrasonic Cleaning of Root Canals

Ultrasonic Cleaning of Root Canals

The exact cleaning mechanism, acoustic streaming, cavitation, a chemical effect, or a combination of these, is not yet known. In this study researchers attempt to reveal the cleaning mechanisms, using knowledge and expertise from physics, acoustics and dentistry.

Yaxchilan’s Whistles (Clay Frogs)

Yaxchilan’s Whistles (Clay Frogs)

Clay frog whistles can sound like natural frogs and possibly, their choruses were used in ceremonies Mayan ceremonies. Some scholars say that clay whistles were simple toys, but it was found that clay-frogs can sing like natural frogs and possibly, their choruses were used in ceremonies to the Mayan god of rain Chaac and other shamanic rites.

Vibrational assessment of ice hockey goalie sticks

Vibrational assessment of ice hockey goalie sticks

Linda J. Hunt – ketteringhunt8831@gmail.comDepartment of PhysicsKettering UniversityFlint, MI, 48504, USA Daniel A. Russell – drussell@engr.psu.eduGraduate Program in AcousticsPennsylvania State UniversityUniversity Park, PA 16802, USA Popular version of...
What Did Dinosaurs Hear?

What Did Dinosaurs Hear?

Robert J. Dooling – Dooling@psyc.umd.eduDepartment of Psychology,University of MarylandCollege Park, MD 20742 Otto GleichENT-Department, University of RegensburgFranz-Josef-Strauß-Allee 1193042 RegensburgGermany Geoffrey A. ManleyDepartment of Zoology,...
Tomar Medicamentos Por Medio De Ultrasonido?

Ultrasonic Drug Delivery?

Ludwig Weimann – info@ultra-sonictechnologies.comUltra-Sonic Technologies, LLC650 Industrial Park RdSt. Albans, VT 05478, USA Junru WuDepartment of Physics,University of Vermont,Burlington, VT 05405, USA Popular version of paper 4aBB2 presentedDecember 5, 2002...
Soundtrack for the Great Ball Court at Chichen Itza

Soundtrack for the Great Ball Court at Chichen Itza

David Lubman, FASA – dlubman@ix.netcom.comAcoustical ConsultantWestminster, CA USA Popular version of paper 4pNSb4 presented December 1, 2006 at the 4th Joint ASA/ASJ Meeting in Honolulu, HI Back to lay language papers The Mesoamerican ballgame has been called...

Sonic Boom

Learn more about Sonic Booms! Acoustics Today Open access scientific magazine of the Acoustical Society of America The “Sound of Freedom" - Characterizing Jet Noise from High-Performance Military Aircraft Engines that propel high-performance tactical aircraft also...
Biomedical Acoustics

Biomedical Acoustics

Learn more about Biomedical Acoustics! Acoustics Today Open access scientific magazine of the Acoustical Society of America Clinical and Preclinical Applications of High-Frequency Ultrasound High-frequency ultrasound technology is set to emerge as a common clinical...

Your Ear

Developed by W.K. Adams Students explore how the ear hears and work through an interactive demonstration. These activities are included in the larger Sound and Music Lesson Plan.  Science Topics Sound WavesVibrationsSoundSense of HearingHealthEnergy Process Skills...

Animal Bioacoustics

Learn more about Animal Bioacoustics! Acoustics Today Open access scientific magazine of the Acoustical Society of America The Impact of Urban and Traffic Noise on Birds Birds, like humans, have problems with hearing in the presence of urban and traffic noise....
Ants Have an Acoustic World of Their Own

Ants Have an Acoustic World of Their Own

It is well known that ants do not respond to sound on a human scale. You can shout at an ant and it doesn’t seem to notice. Yet many ant species communicate by means of squeaking sounds from a stridulatory organ on the ant’s body, consisting of a washboard-like set of ridges and a scraper. The squeaking sounds are usually very faint but they pervade ant colonies. The amplified sound of a colony of black fire ants (Solenopsis richteri), disturbed by a microphone probe pushed into their mound, is given in the attached recording.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

Soundwalk Research

Open access research articles about soundwalks, soundscapes, and phone apps used to collect sound level measurement.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

Musical Instruments part 2

Students experiment with various sound sources, including their voice and different musical instruments to gain an understanding of the connection between sound and vibration.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

Musical Instruments part 1

Students experiment with various sound sources, including straw instruments and water bottles, to gain an understanding of the connection between sound and vibration. This lesson is designed for uses AFTER the Sound and Music introductory lesson.

Wave Basics

Wave Basics

Students explore the PhET Interactive Simulation “Wave on a String” focusing on amplitude and frequency as well
as wave travel.

The Characteristics of Words that Lead to Malapropisms

The Characteristics of Words that Lead to Malapropisms

One type of speech error currently under investigation is the malapropism. A malapropism is a whole word that supplants an intended word. (Other types of speech errors involve segments of sound supplanting intended sound segments). The words that are involved in malapropisms are related to each other in the way that they sound. However, the words that are involved in malapropisms are not related to each other in their meanings.

Acoustical Characterization of Straw Bales as Structural Elements

Acoustical Characterization of Straw Bales as Structural Elements

An understanding of the acoustical properties of straw bales is required if this medium is to be used appropriately. The transmission loss, a measure of how much sound energy is reduced in transmission through materials, was measured for a 20-inch-thick stuccoed wall of wheat and rye-grass straw bales. The effectiveness of straw bales to absorb sound was measured in an approximately cubical, ceramic-tiled room.

Time Reversal of Ultrasonic Waves in Solids

Time Reversal of Ultrasonic Waves in Solids

Acoustic Tim-Reversal-Mirrors (TRM) are, among many other applications, powerful instruments to detect defects in solid materials. Their ability to focus automatically on cracks makes them the most performant ultrasonic devices in this domain. In this paper, we prove that a simultaneous focalization of the different kinds of waves in the solid (transverse and longitudinal waves) can be obtained with such Time-Reversal-Mirrors.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

Tuning Fork Discovery

Students study a brief history of sound, examine the role of tuning forks in this history and then conduct experiments with tuning forks.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

How Dolphins Use Sound

This activity is a visual, class or group discussion version of the Echolocation and SONAR homework. The reading from that activity has been put into a visual power point with student questions placed at key points.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

Sound and Music

Students explore the physics of sound, how the ear hears and how musical instruments work through interactive demonstrations and student activities.

Echolocation Wrap-Up

This activity brings together the hands-on activities done in indoor and outdoor echolocation units and helps students understand why and how echolocation works.

Giant Acoustics Wordsearch

This word search uses 36 acoustics terms found in the lessons and will take a minimum of 2 hours to complete.

Sound Measures

Students use a sound level meter to measure, compare and graph sound levels in different environments.

How Loud is Too Loud?

Students create wheel that will show them various sound sources, the decibels produced by that sound, and allowable time they can be exposed to that level of sound.

Simple Harmonic Motion

Students investigate a spring, a pendulum and pasta w/raisins or marshmallows to determine if the period depends on length, amplitude and mass for each oscillator.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

Sound Wave Lab

Students use the “Sound” simulation from the PhET Interactive Simulations to understand how different sounds are modeled, described and produced.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

Elephant Acoustics

This assignment consists of a series of conceptual questions about a website article on elephant acoustics encouraging the students to connect what they’ve learned about the physics of sound with how elephants hear and make sound.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

Perception

This presentation includes more than an hour of slides which have a section on speech intelligibility and acoustician careers.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

The Doppler Effect

Students experience the Doppler effect by watching videos and teacher demonstrations of how pitch changes followed up with a whole class discussion.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

How Dolphins Use Sound: Elementary

Students learn about people and animals that use echolocation and how it works through video and discussion with their peers. Elementary Edition.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

Fish Finding Game

Students explore the speed of sound by experiencing the delay for sound to reach them when they know a noise has been made.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

Sound Not Sight

Students explore the idea of how it feels to use sound to locate objects and experiment with having to search for objects above and below them, not just side to side.

Ground Squirrels Have Voices that Are Similar to Those of Their Relatives

3D Location

Developed by W.K. Adams Students explore the idea of how it feels to use sound to locate objects and experiment with having to search for objects above and below them, not just side to side. It is necessary to have another activity for other students to do while one...
The Acoustic Features of the Long-Distance Advertisement Call Produced by the Amur (Siberian) Tiger

The Acoustic Features of the Long-Distance Advertisement Call Produced by the Amur (Siberian) Tiger

One serious extinction pressure among many facing the tiger today is the ever advancing encroachment of humans into tiger territories. The sounds of industrialization that necessarily accompany encroachment almost certainly raise the fraction of anthropogenic noise being injected into the home ranges of tigers, diminishing their capacity to communicate vocally, and adding to the escalating threat to the big cats’ long-term odds for survival.

Listening to Antarctic Ice Breaking from Australia

Listening to Antarctic Ice Breaking from Australia

An analysis of 7-year long recordings of sea noise made at the CTBT underwater station off Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia has shown that Antarctica is the major source of low-frequency noise in the Southern Ocean and southern parts of the Indian Ocean. Two different kinds of signals arriving at the Cape Leeuwin station from Eastern Antarctica can generally be distinguished. The most amazing of them are iceberg songs, which are very-low-frequency, from about 3 Hz to 10 Hz multi-harmonic signals lasting sometimes for several hours and which are supposed to be produced by vibrations of the iceberg plate after collision with the seafloor, ice shelf or another iceberg.

Termite Head-Banging: Sounding the Alarm

Termite Head-Banging: Sounding the Alarm

When the Formosan subterranean termite (FST) (Coptotermes formosanus) and the native subterranean termite (RF) (Reticulitermes flavipes) detect a potential breach, the soldiers will usually bang their heads apparently to attract other soldiers for defense and to recruit additional workers to repair any breach.

Voice Recognition in Frogs

Voice Recognition in Frogs

Frogs and toads are among the most vocal of all animals. Generally speaking, male frogs call to attract females and to defend their calling sites or territories from other would-be suitors.

A Sonar Experiment to Study Sound Propagation through Flames

A Sonar Experiment to Study Sound Propagation through Flames

Our initial goal is to locate an open doorway or hallway through flames and smoke within a burning building, but even this simple goal could greatly enhance a firefighters ability to navigate through a burning building and out of danger. From a more fundamental physical acoustics perspective, we are interested in understanding how fire, heat and smoke between the device and a target effect acoustic propagation.

Inventing a New Musical Instrument Before You Are 20 Years Old

Inventing a New Musical Instrument Before You Are 20 Years Old

Students had to ensure the instruments played notes of the Western musical scale and that the timbres of the instruments allowed them to be played together in an ensemble. Finally, the students were required to compose original music for ensembles of these instruments and play them in a public concert in the college’s concert hall.

Active Hearing Protection for Musicians

Active Hearing Protection for Musicians

Studies show that musicians seldom use hearing protection despite being exposed to harmful sound levels on a daily basis. Noise-induced hearing loss does not distinguish between genres of music; as a consequence of overexposure to sound, famous artists such as Eric Clapton, Ozzy Osbourne, Pete Townshend, and Neil Young have reported suffering from hearing loss, tinnitus or both.

Using Sound to Engineer Blood Vessels

Using Sound to Engineer Blood Vessels

There is a critical need for organs and tissues for patients in need of organ transplantation or tissue reconstruction. The field of tissue engineering focuses on developing technologies that enable the replacement or repair of diseased or injured tissues and organs. Recent advances in this field include the engineering of skin substitutes, cartilage replacements, and artificial bladders, all of which are relatively thin tissues.

Noise Pollution in the 21st Century

Noise Pollution in the 21st Century

The 20th century was the noisiest century in the history of the world, resulting in the greatest loss of natural quiet in the history of the world. Noise spread into previously quiet lands, penetrating suburbs, rural areas, and even protected wilderness areas. Will the 21st century set a new record for noise, or begin a new era to bring back quiet?

Using Ultrasound to Detect Intracranial Hemorrhage

Using Ultrasound to Detect Intracranial Hemorrhage

Actor Gary Coleman, actress Natasha Richardson, and famed nutritionist Dr. Robert Atkins all passed away from complications due to traumatic brain injury (TBI). Unfortunately, these are not isolated cases; an estimated 1.7 million people sustain a TBI in the United States every year [1]. We have developed a novel ultrasound device that has the potential to change the narrative, and prevent future stories like these from ending in similar tragedy.

Physics of Stringed Instruments

Physics of Stringed Instruments

Our objectives for this project include an in depth analysis of the properties of stringed instruments. We strived to understand how different stringed instruments function individually, and how instruments differ in their sound and function. Stringed instruments create the sound in three phases: (i) the source or string, (ii) the medium or body and (iii) the interface, which is the oscillation of the air around the body. These elements interact to create the sound we hear in each instrument.

Soundscape Auralization Combines the Art of Recording with Science of Sound

Soundscape Auralization Combines the Art of Recording with Science of Sound

Who can think of the ocean without the cries of seagulls and the crashing of waves, or a summer night in the country without wind in the leaves and the chirping of insects? People have been recording soundscapes for decades, but recent advances in auralization (the creation of simulated acoustical spaces) have made computer simulated, but acoustically accurate, soundscapes possible.

The Crocodilian “Language”: Crocodiles and caimans share the same acoustic code

The Crocodilian “Language”: Crocodiles and caimans share the same acoustic code

The female lays her eggs in the sand or in a nest made with vegetation and guards them until juveniles hatch. At maturity when still inside their eggs, hatchlings emit calls and are responsive to their siblings’ vocalizations. This within-clutch communication synchronizes hatching. The mother also responds to these hatching calls […]

Can a spider “sing”? If so, who might be listening?

Can a spider “sing”? If so, who might be listening?

The “purring” wolf spider (Gladicosa gulosa) may be a unique exception to this assumption. Males create vibrations when they communicate with potential mates in a manner very similar to other wolf spider species, but unlike other wolf spider species, they also create airborne sounds during this communication.

Psychoacoustics of chalkboard squeaking

There are many different sounds that people perceive as unpleasant or that may cause physiological reactions, like chills down the spine. These sounds include scraping a plate with a fork, squeaking Styrofoam or scratching fingernails on a chalkboard. Sometimes simply imagining these sounds or actions may cause the corresponding perception or physiological reaction […]. The aim of our study was to detect specific features of the sounds responsible for the perceived unpleasantness.

Chimpanzees Know When to Keep Quiet

Chimpanzees Know When to Keep Quiet

Chimpanzees are well known for being loud, noisy animals. Film depictions of chimpanzees usually show them whimpering, hooting, screaming and generally making a ruckus. However, chimpanzees are also well known for being intelligent, and by using field experiments and naturalistic observations we have found new evidence that chimpanzees know when to keep quiet.

Just Giggling? Information Content of the Hyena’s Laugh

Just Giggling? Information Content of the Hyena’s Laugh

Hyenas are well known for their vocalizations, which eerily dominate the soundscape at night in the African savannah. The vocal repertoire of the spotted hyena is large, with more than ten different vocalizations. Since hyenas are predominantly nocturnal, vocal signalling is a privileged channel, used for both long- and short-range communications.

The Casual Greeting Doesn’t Travel Far When You’re a Bottlenose Dolphin

The Casual Greeting Doesn’t Travel Far When You’re a Bottlenose Dolphin

Many animals, from grasshoppers in a small field to baleen whales in the open ocean, use acoustic signals to find or attract conspecifics and potential mates, and the farther away you can make yourself heard, the better the odds are for finding mates and transmitting your genes into the next generation. Other animals, such as some primates, birds and meerkats, live in groups where most animals can forage while a few individuals keep watch for predators and raise the alarm in case of danger. Obviously, the distance that these calls are heard plays an important role in group organization and likely places an upper boundary on the dispersion of the group, decreasing foraging competition within the group if alarm calls travel farther and group is more dispersed.

Producing Synthetic Speech from Facial Movements

Producing Synthetic Speech from Facial Movements

New approaches suggest the possibility of artificially producing speech based on measuring facial movements with either attached facial probes or ultrasound. Such techniques could allow people to communicate through speech in places where it would otherwise be difficult or impossible.

Clicking Whales – Who is Speaking?

Toothed whales (odontocetes), including sperm and beaked whales, emit very loud clicks into the water. They do this in order to echolocate: they listen to the echoes from the surface and the bottom to know where they are in the water column, and they listen to echoes from their prey in order to locate their food. A fascinating research question is whether whales can tell which of their comrades is clicking from subtle differences in the clicks emitted by each whale. There are evolutionary advantages to being able to identify the speaker.

Proactive Regulation Engenders Creative Innovation Quieting the Jack Hammer

Proactive Regulation Engenders Creative Innovation Quieting the Jack Hammer

Innovative, proactive regulation can successfully drive product development for lower noise emission levels to the benefit of the community and workers. In 2002, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) undertook to completely revise the city’s Noise Code; the first major recrafting of the code in thirty years. The goal was to improve the quality of life for the people of New York City, but it is also having the collateral benefit of reducing occupational noise exposure for construction workers.

Music to Zebra Finch Ears: Which Acoustic Cues Do Zebra Finches Attend to When Listening to Song?

Music to Zebra Finch Ears: Which Acoustic Cues Do Zebra Finches Attend to When Listening to Song?

Birdsong has long served as a model for vocal development and communication. Zebra finches are a particularly interesting model because they sing just one song their entire lives, and they sing this song with little variation from rendition to rendition. Male zebra finches sing to other males to defend their territories and to females for mating displays. Thus, perception of song is important for species survival.

Evaluation of Crowd Noise in Beaver Stadium During a 2009 Penn State Football Game

Evaluation of Crowd Noise in Beaver Stadium During a 2009 Penn State Football Game

In the fall of 2009, a team of researchers from the Graduate Program in Acoustics at PSU made crowd noise measurements in Beaver Stadium (Americas largest college football stadium: cap. 107,282) in State College, PA, during PSU football games […]. The main goal was to map the crowd noise throughout the entire stadium to show the noisiest locations on the field, and, in turn, the sections of fans who were the loudest contributors.

Are They Absent or Just Undetected: Using Sound to See Secretive, Rare Marine Species?

Are They Absent or Just Undetected: Using Sound to See Secretive, Rare Marine Species?

If we cant see animals because of their naturally secretive behavior, how do we know they are really there and in what numbers so that we can make responsible conservation policy decisions about vulnerable habitats? This situation is exacerbated in Polar Regions where peculiar logistical difficulties of working in pack ice make survey effort enormously expensive, so a further challenge is to gather data cost-effectively. Acoustics, seeing animals with sound using an animals vocalizations as a proxy for field sightings, can be a simple, cost-effective tool. Some marine animals have stereotyped long-range signals which are ideal for cost-effective, repeatable surveying.

Noise from Energy Efficient Hand Dryers: Is This Progress?

Noise from Energy Efficient Hand Dryers: Is This Progress?

A survey was conducted to measure the sound levels from several different models of installed hand dryers. During the survey, the measurements were performed with and without hands in the airstream. This was found to be a significant factor to the loudness of the hand dryer. For some newer hand dryers models, high-speed airflows blowing onto the hands generates substantially higher noise levels.

Understanding Budgerigar Song: Does the Order of Elements Have Significance?

Understanding Budgerigar Song: Does the Order of Elements Have Significance?

Through observation, warble appears highly variable without obvious repetition of particular patterns of elements, indicating that there is no stereotyped song type being produced over and over again. On the other hand, certain combinations of warble elements are sung more often than others, suggesting that warble elements are not just randomly strung together either.

Buffalo Horns and Frog Calls: Some Ancient Free Reed Instruments from Southeast Asia

Buffalo Horns and Frog Calls: Some Ancient Free Reed Instruments from Southeast Asia

Free reed instruments were widespread in Southeast and East Asia for long before the “modern” Western free reed instruments, including the harmonica and the accordion-concertina “squeezebox” family, were developed in Europe starting about two hundred years ago. In the last 20 years there has been considerable interest in the acoustics of free reed instruments, including the Asian free reed mouth organs. This paper deals with two of the very simplest instruments of this type: the enggung of Bali, a single free reed without pipe-resonator, and the free reed buffalo horn, in which a single free reed is mounted in the side of the animal horn. It is hoped that study of these simple instruments will improve understanding of the acoustics of the free reed and the interaction of the reed with a resonator.

Testing Infant Dolphin Hearing

Testing Infant Dolphin Hearing

A baby Risso’s dolphin, a species found in warm temperate and tropical waters, was stranded on a beach in Southern Portugal and taken to the rehabilitation center at ‘Zoomarine’ oceanographic theme park in Portugal. Members of four other dolphin species had also stranded within two weeks and the baby seemed to be “listing,” or lying to one side. Elio Vicente, the director of the Rehabilitation Center at Zoomarine, called us and asked if it would be possible for us to come test the hearing of this infant dolphin.