Wild Music in the News

How does Apple's iTunes Radio compare with other music streaming services? 

A sensor developed in Norway gives microphones hyper-acute hearing and a sense of direction.

YouTube has become the primary music service among young adults, finds a new study by Aalto University. 99% of the respondents to a survey on digital music use listened to YouTube at least sometimes, 35% every day.

BioWatch, which has cost more than $1 billion so far, is designed to detect large-scale biological attacks. But Homeland Security officials say small-scale attacks are more likely to occur.

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Department planners have privately rejected a central premise of BioWatch, the nation's decade-old system for detecting biological weapons released into the air, according to government documents and testimony Tuesday at a congressional hearing.

The U.S. foiled a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange because of the sweeping surveillance programs at the heart of a debate over national security and personal privacy, officials said Tuesday at a rare open hearing on intelligence—a set-piece for supporters of the snooping.

Stephan Hormes and Silke Peust Click to embiggen.

Unlace your bodice, put down your bastard sword, and stop trying to genetically engineer that goat into a unicorn — it turns out all you need to experience the thrill of living in a fantasy novel is to look at this map of place name etymological origins.

Stephan Hormes and Silke Peust Click to embiggen.

Suddenly, instead of having a conference in New Orleans, you have it in New Golden One, Land of the Warriors. You’re not from Jersey — you inhabit the Isle of Spears. Your European vacation might take you on a quest through the Fire-Cleared Land to Lightstone. And of course, we all dream of a getaway to the Islands of the Monkey God* (*the one with the strong maxillaries). At least, we do now.

Stephan Hormes and Silke Peust Click to embiggen.

The Atlas of True Names is a project of cartographers Stephan Hormes and Silke Peust, and you can buy a physical map to hang on your wall and make every mundane business trip or holiday homecoming into an epic adventure.

Stephan Hormes and Silke Peust Click to embiggen.
Filed under: Cities

A new sensor will help to make microphones hypersensitive: "Think of traditional videoconference equipment. Several people are sitting around the table, but the microphone has been placed where its sound reception is less than optimal. With technology of this sort, a microphone will be able to "see" where the sound comes from, pick up the voice of the person speaking, and filter out other sources of noise in the room," explains one of the researchers.

In a rural classroom in the Thai highlands, hill tribe children energetically slide their fingertips over tablet computer screens practicing everything from English to mathematics and music.

The state ordered the Exide plant to shut in April, citing arsenic emissions and calling it a public health risk. A judge rules it can restart operations, pending a hearing.

A Vernon battery recycler shut by the state in April as a health risk to thousands of nearby residents will be allowed to reopen pending a court hearing next month, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Monday.

Kids may use little sounds and air puffs as stand-ins for grammatical words.

Obese adolescents are more likely than their normal-weight counterparts to have hearing loss, according to results of a new study. Findings showed that obese adolescents had increased hearing loss across all frequencies and were almost twice as likely to have unilateral (one-sided) low-frequency hearing loss.

A small, pilot study is examining how mobile technology might support deaf and hard-of-hearing college students when an interpreter can't physically be present at the time the services are requested. The University of Cincinnati research will be presented on June 19, at the Critical Link 7 International Conference in Toronto. The conference is themed, "Global Awakening: Leading Practices in Interpreting."

[caption id="attachment_321" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Chinatown. Photo: Patrick Shen"] [/caption]Earlier this year, a Kickstarter campaign for a documentary film called "In Pursuit of Silence" raised $35,371, exceeding its goal in just a few weeks. On a crowdfunding platform where a new film proposal can pull in nearly 100 times that amount--for Zach Braff's follow-up to "Garden State," precisely $3,105,473--the financing feat was modest. Still, hundreds of contributors shelled out cash , remarkably, for nothing but onscreen peace and quiet. By "exploring the value of silence, our relationship with sound, and the implications of living in a noisy world," promised Patrick Shen, the documentary's director, viewers could indulge in 80 minutes of quiescence. And, for over 35 million Americans suffering from hearing loss, toiling in urban cacophonies roughly 1 decibel louder every year, perhaps that was worth the price of admission. [More]

Across the dizzying, colorful show floor at last week's Electronic Entertainment Expo, there were games on display where players could become all manner of things, like a throat-slashing 18th century pirate, zombie killer, a guardian of the last city on earth, music-making sorcerer, ruthless Roman general, shape-shifting creature, goblin slayer and Batman.

(Phys.org) —Scientists at A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) have developed a revolutionary method to quickly cut through noise and generate a unified and simplified analysis of high-throughput biological data from, for example, patient samples. The technique, known as a pre-whitening matched filter, is well known in electrical engineering and widely used in cell phones and radar. This is the first time, however, computational scientists, led by Dr Shyam Prabhakar, Associate Director, Integrated Genomics, GIS, have adapted it to the analysis of high-throughput DNA sequencing data, with surprisingly accurate results. The development was recently published in the prestigious journal, Nature Biotechnology.

National Paracycling Champion Tom Staniford has an extremely rare condition which, until now, has puzzled his doctors. He is unable to store fat under his skin -- yet has type 2 diabetes -- and suffered hearing loss as a child. Now, thanks to advances in genome sequencing, an international research team has identified Tom's condition and pinpointed the single genetic mutation that causes it.

(Wellcome Trust) National Paracycling Champion Tom Staniford has an extremely rare condition which, until now, has puzzled his doctors. He is unable to store fat under his skin -- yet has type 2 diabetes -- and suffered hearing loss as a child. Now, thanks to advances in genome sequencing, an international research team part-funded by the Wellcome Trust has identified Tom's condition and pinpointed the single genetic mutation that causes it.

People classified with perfect pitch may not actually be as in tune with the sounds they hear as they think, a study finds.

They lie dormant for years, but at the first sign of favorable conditions they awaken. This sounds like the tagline for a science fiction movie, but it describes the amazing life-cycles of microbial organisms that form the biological soil crusts (BSCs) of Earth's deserts. Now a research team with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has reported a unique molecular-level analysis of a BSC cyanobacterium responding to the wetting and drying of its environment. The results hold implications for land management, improved climate change models, and a better understanding of carbon cycling in soil microbial communities and how changes in global temperatures impact Earth's deserts.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sting performed in honor of Elton John, Billy Joel sang snippets of Foreigner's hits when introducing the band and Smokey Robinson debuted part of a new song he wrote about Berry Gordy....