Mastodawn

A new kind of bass trap! Low-frequency sound absorption achieved by replacing the high-stiffness neck of a Helmholtz resonator w/ a soft, viscoelastic cylindrical shell for tunable viscoelastic damping. Greater than 97% absorption of 227 to 329 Hz with deep-subwavelength thickness (λ/15 at 227 Hz).
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2520808122

Symbolic Sound 1d ago

Study published in Science suggests that bumble bees have truly flexible rhythm perception. The bees learned to discriminate rhythmic patterns of vibration; generalized those patterns to slower & faster rates; and transferred learning of 2 vibrational patterns to their equivalent flashing light patterns. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz2894

Symbolic Sound Feb 6

When we "listened" to the collapse of the shape-shifting polymer PNIPAM, our ears detected what our eyes had missed: "Water bridges" (water-mediated hydrogen bonds), not just direct polymer contacts, organize the collapse.

We published the results in PNAS https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2523755123

and outlined the methodology—Auditory Analytics—in the Journal of Chemometrics this week! https://doi.org/10.1002/cem.70097

PNIPAM Video abstract: https://youtu.be/tnQVaFgKprw

Auditory Analytics intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5EkwfGUcvc

Symbolic Sound Jan 29

Unique among the senses, the ear expends energy to amplify the stimuli that it detects. New research shows that a segment of mammalian cochlea ex vivo displays features of this active process—amplification, frequency tuning, compressive nonlinearity & generation of distortion products—operating locally & near criticality at a Hopf bifurcation—a unified biophysical principle that underlies auditory processing across species. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2503389122
#PNAS #Hearing #Auditory #Complexsystems

Symbolic Sound Jan 28

Isn’t it time we added "Analytical Listening" to the scientific method?

In our recent talk at the Flatiron Institute, we make the case for #AuditoryAnalytics in scientific exploration & discovery, showing that data sonification can drive hypothesis refinement & new model generation.

Watch the 15-min presentation by Martin Gruebele, Kurt Hebel, and Carla Scaletti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJOVaCUUibk

#Sonification #DataScience

Scaletti, Gruebele, Hebel: Auditory Analytics for Scientific Exploration & Disco (October 22, 2025)

YouTube

Symbolic Sound Jan 8

"[E]very design is a decision, and every decision shapes the future of musical thinking." Andrew Telichan-Phillips interviews the developers of SuperCollider, ChucK, Max, and Kyma, concluding that "symbolic systems do not merely describe the world; they organize it." https://direct.mit.edu/comj/article/48/3/18/132061/Encoding-Sound-Perspectives-on-Cultural-Bias-in

Symbolic Sound Dec 14

A new study published in Science demonstrates that macaques can spontaneously synchronize to a beat, contradicting the “vocal-learning hypothesis” that musical beat synchronization is privileged to species with complex learned vocalizations. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp5220

Symbolic Sound Oct 8, 2025

Otophysans, known for their enhanced hearing, comprise 2/3 of freshwater fish. Recent discovery of a Late Cretaceous fossil places their origin ~154 million years ago. Their distinctive hearing abilities evolved in conjunction with fusion of hearing ossicles & freshwater adaptations. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adr4494

Symbolic Sound Jul 19, 2025

The Science is Sound! From acoustic analogs of electron entanglement, to positioning heart cells using Chladni plates, to hydrogen bond sonification & more, check out the July Shaastra cover story by Pallab Roygupta on some unexpected ways sound is being used to advance the frontiers of science.
https://shaastramag.iitm.ac.in/lead-story/science-sound

The science is sound | Indian Institute of Technology Madras - IITM Shaastra

Sound waves are being increasingly channelled to probe nature, with significant potential applications.

Indian Institute of Technology Madras - IITM Shaastra

Symbolic Sound Jun 28, 2025

SonicBoom—an autonomous robot arm that uses sound to sense objects in visually cluttered environments. Small differences in signal intensity & phase across an array of contact mics embedded in the arm can localize the sound source & thus the point of contact with accuracy of ~0.4 to 2 cm https://spectrum.ieee.org/farm-robots-sound-based-sensing

Farm Robots Navigate With SonicBoom's Sound-Based Sensing

SonicBoom lets robots "feel" their way through farms using sound. Could this be the key to affordable and efficient harvesting?

IEEE Spectrum