The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

Earliest recording predates Edison.

The International Herald Tribune says a Frenchman recorded “Au Clair de la Lune” 20 years before the phonograph was invented:

The 10-second recording of a singer crooning the folk song “Au Clair de la Lune” was discovered earlier this month in an archive in Paris by a group of American audio historians. It was made, the researchers say, on April 9, 1860, on a phonautograph, a machine designed to record sounds visually, not to play them back. But the phonautograph recording, or phonautogram, was made playable — converted from squiggles on paper to sound — by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California

“This is a historic find, the earliest known recording of sound,” said Samuel Brylawski, the former head of the recorded-sound division of the Library of Congress, who is not affiliated with the research group but who was familiar with its findings. The audio excavation could give a new primacy to the phonautograph, once considered a curio, and its inventor, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian typesetter and tinkerer who went to his grave convinced that credit for his breakthroughs had been improperly bestowed on Edison.

Scott’s device had a barrel-shaped horn attached to a stylus, which etched sound waves onto sheets of paper blackened by smoke from an oil lamp. The recordings were not intended for listening; the idea of audio playback had not been conceived. Rather, Scott sought to create a paper record of human speech that could later be deciphered.

Well, science has moved on since de Martinville’s time, and you can hear a snip from his song here. Ghostly and distorted, but there.

Entered on 31 March 2008 at 6:58 in the Music, Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Science Art: “Australisk fauna,” Nordisk Familjebok Encyclopedia

^{Click to embiggen}

This is an image from an old Norwegian encyclopedia, the “Norwegian Familybook” published sometime from 1904 to 1926.

In Norwegian, the animals illustrated are:

1. Jättekänguru.
2. Klätterkänguru.
3. Pungvarg.
4. Näbbdjur.
5. Myrigelkott.
6. Nymf.
7. Nestorpapegoja.
8. Ugglepapegoja.
9. Paradisfågel.
10. Emu.
11. Kasuar.
12. Kivi (dvärgstruts).
13. Lyrfågel.
14. Talegalla-höns.
15. Kamödla.
16. Ceratodus Forsteri.
17. Hjälmprydd kakadora.

So now you know how to say “thyclacine,” “platypus” and “echidna” (numbers 3-5, in order) in Norwegian.

Found in a very special category on Wikimedia Commons.

Entered on 30 March 2008 at 6:18 in the Science Art file | 1 Observation |  Print

A swarming army of cyborg bugs.

Wired reminds us that the U.S. military now has a functioning army of cyborg insects:

DARPA’s Hi-MEMS program aims to implant place micro-mechanical systems [MEMS] “inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis,” the agency explains. That way, as the bugs get older, tissues grow around — and fuse together with — the tiny machines.

Flight International reports that, in his latest work, Michelson truncated a Manduca moth’s thorax “to reduce its mass.” Then he put in “a MEMS component… where abdominal segments would have been, during the larval stage.”

So. Remote-controlled moths, roaches, bees and who knows what else.

More on Dr. Michelson’s DARPA research here and here.

Entered on 28 March 2008 at 6:45 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

I’m on Rumblefish.

How very unexpected.

But pleasant nonetheless.

Entered on 27 March 2008 at 6:11 in the Guild Affairs file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

SkySails: Success!

The new age of sail can start now.

Entered on 24 March 2008 at 6:14 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

SONG: My Fingertips Are Weightless.

SONG: “My Fingertips Are Weightless” _{(To download: right-click & “Save As”)}

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: “Origami spaceplane aims for space station descent”, New Scientist, 21 January 2008, as used in the post The King of Paper Airplanes (and referenced in the Space Boomerang posts).

ABSTRACT: There’s simply something beautiful about paper airplanes. They’re sort of overused as props in the “Hey, science can be FUN!” educational experiences, but yeah, they’re a thing you can design and build and experiment with and they require the absolute minimum equipment. A piece of paper. So the image of an astronaut with a paper airplane is doubly compelling to me – the simple, kid science of paper airplanes and the complex, awesome science of putting human beings in orbit. Looking down at the planet wondering if the wings are angled just right… you get the idea.

So that’s what this is. An astronaut with a paper airplane. The only noises that didn’t come from my throat or a pitch-bent guitar were from chopped-up drums and Sputnik. (I couldn’t help myself.)

Entered on 24 March 2008 at 2:35 in the Songs file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Science Art: Tröpfchentextur

A microscopic image of liquid crystal by Wikimedia Commons user "Minutemen."

Happy Easter.

Entered on 23 March 2008 at 6:11 in the Science Art file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Expelled from Expelled.

You’ve no doubt heard of the Ben Stein movie extolling the virtues of Intelligent Design and bemoaning the fact that it isn’t being allowed in science classrooms.

Well, I should say something clever about this latest bit of news, but all I can get out is BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(With a follow-up here.)

Entered on 22 March 2008 at 6:29 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Space Boomerang: Conclusion.

It came back.

They’re not sure why.

Entered on 21 March 2008 at 16:35 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Music Brain.

Science News rhapsodizes over Johns Hopkins research into what happens in musicians’ brains that makes the music happen:

“What we think is happening is that when you’re telling your own musical story, you’re shutting down neural impulses that might impede the flow of novel ideas,” says Limb, himself a trained jazz saxophonist.

Moreover, jazz musicians immersed in improvisation display heightened brain activity in all sensory areas and in adjacent motor regions, the researchers say. Improvisers’ brains “ramped up” to translate incoming sensations into novel musical performances, Limb suggests.

The researchers used MRI scanners to read brain activity as various kinds of musicians went through their paces, playing scales, playing planned compositions, and just exploring a few riffs.

My favorite bit is from the end of the article:

Further research could help determine whether the observed frontal responses contribute to altered states of consciousness often reported during jazz improvisation.

Neuroscientist Fredrik Ullén of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm regards the widespread deactivation of planning-related frontal areas during jazz improvisation as “the most fascinating new finding.” In a 2007 fMRI study of classical pianists, Ullén found more frontal-brain activation during improvisation than Limb and Braun did. However, classical pianists lack the improvisational experience of jazz pianists, he says.

Entered on 21 March 2008 at 6:17 in the Music, Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print