The Book of Barely Imagined Beings

The most powerful tool we have for understanding the universe is right between our two ears. And those same ears provide a wealth of info...

The Cunning Little Vixen , at once a charming children's tale and a profound allegory of modern life, may be Janáček's greatest ach...

The previous post touched on whale music in the world ocean. Non-living systems can create kinds of music too: Dunes near Al-Askharah in ...

Twenty-seventh in a series of notes and comments on The Book of Barely Imagined Beings Chapter 18: Right whale page 268: epigraph...

Not a new story but new to me: Gibbons on helium sing like sopranos Yes, there was a serious scientific purpose behind the experiment ...

Musical performance is associated with powerful beings and is a means of communicating with them although it is not directly addressed to...

What happens when [the animal] orchestra is disrupted by the anthrophony: chain saws, leaf blowers or highway traffic? If an indiscrimina...

When we were living closer to the natural world, we discovered links between the ways in which sounds were formed - what I call "bioph...

I have not posted for months because I have been busy (the home strait for the book is imaginable). The following is not exactly reflective...

Spectrograms of whale song by Mark Fischer

This clip brings to mind a similar experience in Svaalbard in 2003. Through a hydrophone in the sea comes a series of long whistles that st...

Bob MacCallum and Armand Leroi have an interesting experiment at Darwintunes.org

Manakins spend 80% of their daylight hours dancing . -- Nicky Clayton (added 11 Nov:) and at least one species makes music with its wings .

I cannot help thinking that if only I knew more about them, and how they maintain our synchrony, I would have a new way to explain music to ...

Pretty random this one, but pleasing enough to share: Vocal play (in the form of babbling) does not appear to be unique to humans. Elowson e...

Research indicates that (some) orangutans make wind 'instruments' out of folded vegetation, blowing through it to modulate the sound...

Even as I watch, however, I can see things changing. I realize the baby boy is beginning to come together. Already there are hints of smal...

Jonathan Balcombe ( 2006 ) quotes Eugene Lindon ( 2003 ): There is a world of difference between what a scientist can publish and what we e...

The scientists believe that the parrots' apparent capacity for dance may be linked to another talent that they share with humans - the a...

It may or may not be altogether true. It does make for a good story: Konstantin Saradzhev [had] almost superhuman aural acuity: between two ...