Acoustics News

June 13, 2025

Top Headlines

High-Quality OLED Displays Now Enabling Integrated Thin and Multichannel Audio

May 21, 2025 — A research team has developed the world's first Pixel-Based Local Sound OLED technology. This breakthrough enables each pixel of an OLED display to simultaneously emit different sounds, essentially ...

Using Sound to 'See' Unexploded Munitions on the Seafloor

May 19, 2025 — More than 400 underwater sites in the United States are potentially contaminated with unexploded ordnance -- weapons that did not explode upon ...

Remotely Moving Objects Underwater Using Sound

May 20, 2025 — A metamaterial is a composite material that exhibits unique properties due to its structure, and now researchers have used one featuring a small sawtooth pattern on its surface to move and position objects underwater without touching them directly. ...

Research Reveals Why Next-Generation Engine Noise Grinds Our Gears

May 15, 2025 — A breakthrough study has revealed why emerging electric aircraft engine technology sounds so annoying -- and how to fix ...

Tiny Vibrations Have a Massive Impact: Transmitting Clear Signals Over Long Distances Using Nonlinear Math

May 8, 2025 — A research team has discovered a surprising phenomenon that could revolutionize how we think about signal amplification. Just two tiny vibrating units can, when connected with a delay, amplify their ...

Amuse, a Songwriting AI-Collaborator to Help Create Music

May 9, 2025 — Researchers have developed AI technology similar to a fellow songwriter who helps create ...

New Discovery Shows How Molecules Can Mute Heat Like Music

May 7, 2025 — Using a thermal sensor smaller than a grain of sand, engineers have measured the vibrations, or phonons, within individual ...

Would a Musical Triangle of Any Other Shape Sound as Sweet?

May 6, 2025 — Researchers captured sound fields around musical triangles. They wanted to understand the physical properties of the triangle instrument, test assumptions about the contribution of the triangle shape, and capture clear documentation through pictures ...

A Big Data Approach for Battery Electrolytes

May 5, 2025 — A new article puts artificial intelligence and machine learning on the task of finding new, powerful electrolytes for designing next-generation batteries for electric vehicles, phones, laptops and grid-scale energy storage. The paper outlines a new ...

Manipulating Microbubbles to Control Fluids

May 2, 2025 — A watched pot never boils, goes the old saying, but many of us have at least kept an eye on the pot, waiting for the bubbling to start. It's satisfying to finally see the rolling boil, behind which complex physical mechanisms are at play. When this ...

Trouble Hearing in Noisy Places and Crowded Spaces? Researchers Say New Algorithm Could Help Hearing Aid Users

Apr. 28, 2025 — BU researchers develop a brain-inspired algorithm that can help people with hearing loss pick out conversations in noisy, crowded ...

Uncovering the Relationship Between Life and Sound

Apr. 16, 2025 — There's a sensation that you experience -- near a plane taking off or a speaker bank at a concert -- from a sound so total that you feel it in your very being. When this happens, not only do your brain and ears perceive it, but your cells may also. ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:47pm EDT

Feeling the Future: New Wearable Tech Simulates Realistic Touch

Mar. 27, 2025 — Most haptic devices only deliver feedback as simple vibrations. New device applies dynamic forces in any direction to simulate a more realistic sense of touch. Small, lightweight device can enhance ...

Listen to Quantum Atoms Talk Together Thanks to Acoustics

Mar. 25, 2025 — To get around the constraints of quantum physics, researchers have built a new acoustic system to study the way the minuscule atoms of condensed matter talk together. They hope to one day build an ...

What's Behind the 'Pop and Slosh' When Opening a Swing-Top Bottle of Beer?

Mar. 18, 2025 — Researchers decided to use a high-speed camera to capture what occurs while opening a swing-top bottle of beer. They found that the sound emitted by opening a pressurized bottle with a swing-top lid ...

Researchers Develop Computational Tools to Safeguard Privacy Without Degrading Voice-Based Cognitive Markers

Mar. 14, 2025 — Digital voice recordings contain valuable information that can indicate an individual's cognitive health, offering a non-invasive and efficient ...

Study Highlights Noninvasive Hearing Aid

Mar. 13, 2025 — A study highlights a new approach in addressing conductive hearing loss. A team of scientists has designed a new type of hearing aid that not only improves hearing but also offers a safe, ...

Dynamic Acoustics of Hand Clapping, Elucidated

Mar. 12, 2025 — Researchers elucidate the complex physical mechanisms and fluid dynamics involved in a handclap, with potential applications in bioacoustics and personal identification, whereby a handclap could be ...

'Fishial' Recognition: Neural Network Identifies Coral Reef Sounds

Mar. 11, 2025 — Researchers combine acoustic monitoring with a neural network to identify fish activity on coral reefs by sound. They trained the network to sort through the deluge of acoustic data automatically, ...

Research Reveals Potential Alternatives to 'Forever Chemicals'

Feb. 25, 2025 — Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are known as forever chemicals because of their extreme persistence. These compounds have useful properties including durability and waterproofing, so ...

A Symphony in Quantum

Feb. 10, 2025 — Entanglement -- linking distant particles or groups of particles so that one cannot be described without the other -- is at the core of the quantum revolution changing the face of modern technology. ...

Music Can Touch the Heart, Even Inside the Womb

Feb. 4, 2025 — Researchers have used mathematical analysis tools to study the effect of classical music on a fetal heartbeat and identify patterns in heart rate variability. They recruited 36 pregnant women and ...

New Training Approach Could Help AI Agents Perform Better in Uncertain Conditions

Jan. 29, 2025 — AI agents trained in simulations that differ from the environments where they are deployed sometimes perform better than agents trained and deployed in the same environment, research ...

Research Shows How Music Can Reduce Distress

Dec. 19, 2024 — A new study has demonstrated for the first time how and why music can reduce distress and agitation for people with advanced dementia. The study involved interviews with staff and music therapists on ...

Lost Score Revives Sound of Music and Voices from Centuries Past

Dec. 18, 2024 — A fragment of 'lost' music found in the pages of Scotland's first full-length printed book is providing clues to what music sounded like five centuries ago. Scholars have been ...

New Virtual Reality-Tested System Shows Promise in Aiding Navigation of People With Blindness or Low Vision

Dec. 17, 2024 — A new study offers hope for people who are blind or have low vision (pBLV) through an innovative navigation system that was tested using virtual reality. The system, which combines vibrational and ...

Bringing the Power of Tabletop Precision Lasers for Quantum Science to the Chip Scale

Dec. 12, 2024 — For experiments that require ultra-precise measurements and control over atoms -- think two-photon atomic clocks, cold-atom interferometer sensors and quantum gates -- lasers are the technology of ...

Shape-Changing Device Helps Visually Impaired People Perform Location Task as Well as Sighted People

Dec. 10, 2024 — A groundbreaking piece of navigation technology that uses the ability to sense information through touch can help people with visual impairment perform a location task as well as sighted people, ...

The Parasaurolophus' Pipes: Modeling the Dinosaur's Crest to Study Its Sound

Nov. 21, 2024 — Scientists have presented results on the acoustic characteristics of a physical model of the Parasaurolophus' crest. They created a physical setup made of tubes to represent a mathematical model ...

Do Pipe Organs Create an Auto-Tune Effect?

Nov. 20, 2024 — The pipe organ stands as a bastion in concert halls and church sanctuaries, and even when not in use, it affects the acoustical environment around it. Researchers performed a sine-sweep through ...

Ouch! Commonalties Found in Pain Vocalizations and Interjections Across Cultures

Nov. 19, 2024 — An interdisciplinary team explored possible regularities in vocal emotional expressions by comparing expressive interjections, such as 'wow,' to nonlinguistic vocalizations, such as screams ...

AI Headphones Create a 'Sound Bubble,' Quieting All Sounds More Than a Few Feet Away

Nov. 14, 2024 — Researchers have created a headphone prototype that allows listeners to hear people speaking within a bubble with a programmable radius of 3 to 6 feet. Voices and sounds outside the bubble are ...

Researchers Are Making Jet Engines Fit for the Hydrogen Age

Nov. 8, 2024 — Hydrogen-powered planes are set to take wing around the world in the future. To make this possible, engineers have to develop the jet engines that will power them. Experiments by researchers are now ...

Bach, Mozart or Jazz

Nov. 5, 2024 — Physicists have investigated to which extent a piece of music can evoke expectations about its progression. They were able to determine differences in how far compositions of different composers can ...

The 'Queen of the Night' Does Not Whistle

June 18, 2024 — Opera singers have to use the extreme limits of their voice range. Many pedagogical and scientific sources suggest that the highest pitches reached in classical singing can only be produced with a ...

Enhancing Nanofibrous Acoustic Energy Harvesters With Artificial Intelligence

June 3, 2024 — Scientists have employed artificial intelligence techniques to improve the design and production of nanofibers used in wearable nanofiber acoustic energy harvesters (NAEH). These acoustic devices ...

Spider Silk Sound System

May 16, 2024 — Researchers have investigated how spiders listen to their environments through webs and found that the webs match the acoustic particle velocity for a wide range of sound frequencies. Playing sound ...

Metalens Expands Its Reach from Light to Sound

May 14, 2024 — Engineers achieve a wide field-of-hearing acoustic metalens free from ...

US Navy Growler Jet Noise Over Whidbey Island Could Impact 74,000 People's Health

May 10, 2024 — As often as four days a week, Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island fly loops overhead as pilots practice touch-and-go landings. The noise is ...

This Sound-Suppressing Silk Can Create Quiet Spaces

May 7, 2024 — Researchers developed a silk fabric, which is barely thicker than a human hair, that can suppress unwanted noise and reduce noise transmission in a large ...

Why Getting in Touch With Our 'Gerbil Brain' Could Help Machines Listen Better

May 7, 2024 — Researchers have debunked a 75-year-old theory about how humans determine where sounds are coming from, and it could unlock the secret to creating a next generation of more adaptable and efficient ...

Data-Driven Music: Converting Climate Measurements Into Music

Apr. 18, 2024 — A geo-environmental scientist from Japan has composed a string quartet using sonified climate data. The 6-minute-long composition -- entitled 'String Quartet No. 1 'Polar Energy ...