The Nature of Sound

Resources

• General
  • Acoustical Society of America
  • Pulse of the Planet. Two minute sound portraits from planet earth. A radio series and podcast which tracks the rhythms of nature, culture and science
• animals
  • dogs
    • Hearing in large and small dogs: Absolute thresholds and size of the tympanic membrane. Henry E. Heffner. Behavioral Neuroscience. Vol. 97 No. 2 (1983): 310–318.
  • elephants
    • How Low Can You Go? Physical Production Mechanism of Elephant Infrasonic Vocalizations. Christian T. Herbst, Angela S. Stoeger, Roland Frey, Jörg Lohscheller, Ingo R. Titze, Michaela Gumpenberger, W. Tecumseh Fitch. Science. Vol. 337 No. 6094 (2012): 595–599.
  • pigeons
    • Sound Maps May Help Pigeons Navigate. Elizabeth Devitt. Science Now (2013).
    • Frequency shift discrimination: Can homing pigeons locate infrasounds by Doppler shifts? Douglas B. Quine and Melvin L. Kreithen. Journal of Comparative Physiology A. Vol. 141 No. 2 (1981): 153–155.
    • Detection of atmospheric infrasound by homing pigeons. Marilyn L. Yodlowski, Melvin L. Kreithen, William T. Keeton. Nature. Vol. 265 (1977): 725–726.
  • tigers
    • Acoustic Communication in Panthera tigris: A Study of Tiger Vocalization and Auditory Receptivity. Walsh, Edward J.; Wang, Lily M.; Armstrong, Douglas L.; Curro, Thomas; Simmons, Lee G.; and McGee, JoAnn. Architectural Engineering — Faculty Publications. Paper 38 (2003).
    • Infrasonic and low‐frequency vocalizations from Siberian and Bengal tigers. Elizabeth von Muggenthaler. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Vol. 108 No. 5 (2000): 2541.
  • General
    • Bioacoustics Research Program. Cornell University.
    • Echolocation in Dolphins and Bats. Whitlow W. L. Au, and James A. Simmons. Physics Today. Vol. 60 No. 9 (2007): 40–45.
    • Frequency Hearing Ranges in Dogs and Other Species. George M. Strain. Louisiana State University (2003).
    • Hearing in Vertebrates: A Psychophysics Databook (paid link). Richard R. Fay, et al. Winnetka, IL: Hill-Fay Associates (1988).
    • Hearing Ranges of Laboratory Animals. Henry E. Heffner and Rickye S. Heffner. Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science. Vol. 46 No. 1 (2007): 11–13.
  • Springer Handbook of Auditory Research
    • Comparative Hearing, 1994
    • Comparative Hearing: Birds and Reptiles, 2000
    • Comparative Hearing: Fish and Amphibians, 1998
    • Comparative Hearing: Insects, 1998
    • Comparative Hearing: Mammals. 1994
    • Evolution of the Vertebrate Auditory System, 2004
    • Fish Bioacoustics, 2008
    • Hearing by Whales and Dolphins, 2000
    • Hearing and Sound Communication in Amphibians, 2006
• humans
  • A walk with Daniel Kish, who navigates the world using 'flash sonar'. Kate Torgovnick May. TED (2015).
  • audiocheck.net Test your hearing or your computer sound system.
  • hearingtest.online. Online hearing test and audiogram printout.
  • How We Localize Sound. William M. Hartman. Physics Today. Vol. 52 No. 11 (1999): 24–29.
  • A Ring Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears. Paul Vitello. New York Times (2006).
• hyrdoacoustics
  • Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate (ATOC). University of California, San Diego.
  • The Bloop. Brian Dunning. Skeptoid. Episode 177 (2009). A mysterious sound captured by NOAA hydrophones... could it be a sea monster?
  • Discovery of Sound in the Sea (DOSITS). University of Rhode Island.
  • International Ocean Noise Coalition. Animal Welfare Institute.
  • Ocean Noise. National Resources Defence Council. The use of military sonar poses a deadly threat to whales and other marine mammals.
  • PMEL Acoustics. Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
  • Perennial Acoustic Observatory in the Antarctic Ocean (PALAOA). Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. An antarctic research project and series of webpages that have disappeared without a trace.
  • Salish Sea Hydrophone Network (orcasound.net). This site is part of the SeaSound Project of The Whale Museum and is an experiment in sharing real-time underwater sound.
  • Scripps Whale Acoustic Lab. Scripps Institution of Oceanography. University of California San Diego
    • Voices in the Sea (voicesinthesea.org)
• infrasound
  • General
    • Infrasonic and Near Infrasonic Atmospheric Sounding and Imaging. A.J. Bedard Jr. Environmental Technology Laboratory. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
    • Infrasound and Seismo-Acoustic Sensing. Southern Methodist University.
  • monitoring stations
    • Infrasound Monitoring. Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization.
  • Space shuttle
    • Infrasound of Space Shuttle Columbia. David P. Anderson. Southern Methodist University (2006).
    • Shock Waves from Shuttle Columbia. Geotech Instruments, LLC.
• ultrasound
  • SASER (sound laser, sound amplification through stimulated emission of radiation)
    • A sonic boom in the world of lasers. University of Nottingham (17 June 2009).
  • terahertz sound
    • The Radiant Side of Sound. Caryn Meissner. Science & Technology Review (September 2009): 20–22.
• microphones
  • The Science and Engineering of Sound. John P. Hess. Filmmaker IQ. YouTube (2014). Take a closer look at the science of sound and the basics of how microphones convert sound energy into electrical signals. We will also run through the different kinds of mics used in video and film production.