University of Utah engineers discover the reasons why some people get dizzy when hearing certain sounds
For some people, certain sounds like a trumpet blowing a particular tone can make them dizzy, and it’s not because they’re giddy from a Wynton Marsalis melody. (more…)
University of Utah engineers discover the reasons why some people get dizzy when hearing certain sounds
For some people, certain sounds like a trumpet blowing a particular tone can make them dizzy, and it’s not because they’re giddy from a Wynton Marsalis melody. (more…)
ANN ARBOR — A carbon-nanotube-coated lens that converts light to sound can focus high-pressure sound waves to finer points than ever before. The University of Michigan engineering researchers who developed the new therapeutic ultrasound approach say it could lead to an invisible knife for noninvasive surgery.
Today’s ultrasound technology enables far more than glimpses into the womb. Doctors routinely use focused sound waves to blast apart kidney stones and prostate tumors, for example. The tools work primarily by focusing sound waves tightly enough to generate heat, says Jay Guo, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, mechanical engineering, and macromolecular science and engineering. Guo is a co-author of a paper on the new technique published in the current issue of Nature’s journal Scientific Reports. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— What does a solar storm sound like? To get an idea, a University of Michigan researcher has created a “sonification” of measurements from two spacecraft during the most recent storm. Take a listen in this video.
The researcher who created it is Robert Alexander, a University of Michigan design science doctoral student. Alexander is a composer with a NASA fellowship to study how representing information as sound could aid in data mining. (more…)
Critical genetic secrets of a bacterium that holds potential for removing toxic and radioactive waste from the environment have been revealed in a study by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The researchers have provided the first ever map of the genes that determine how these bacteria interact with their surrounding environment.
“Knowing how bacteria respond to environmental changes is crucial to our understanding of how their physiology tracks with consequences that are both good, such as bioremediation, and bad, such as biofouling,” says Aindrila Mukhopadhyay, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division, who led this research. “We have reported the first systematic mapping of the genes in a sulfate-reducing bacterium – Desulfovibrio vulgaris – that regulate the mechanisms by which the bacteria perceive and respond to environmental signals.” (more…)
