The anechoic chamber at Bell Labs absorbs 99.999% of created sound

Stonehenge produces concert-hall-like acoustics

Acoustics researcher Trevor Cox discovered that Stonehenge acts like a concert hall, reflecting and amplifying sound. This video shows Cox demonstrating the effect using a scale model inside a soundproof studio.

Supermassive black holes create pressure waves, detectable as extremely low sounds

Space is largely silent because it lacks a medium for sound waves. Some Mars rovers capture sounds of wind, though the sounds are too low to hear. Through sonification, astronomical data can be translated into hearable sounds for broader engagement.

Noise-canceling headphones cancel out environmental sounds with sound of its own

If sound waves are perfectly out of sync, they can undergo destructive interference, canceling each other out. A microphone in noise-canceling headphones picks up external sounds, and an out-of-sync version is emitted to cancel them out in your ears.

We hear because soundwaves are converted into electrochemical signals in our ears

This science teacher video systematically walks through the biology of the outer, middle, and inner ear. The explanation starts with the auricle, an external part that funnels sound through the auditory canal, and the tympanic membrane (the ear drum), which vibrates when sounds hit it. Beyond that, as the video details, is the eustachian tube, which is connected to the back of our throats and allows air to pass in and out to equalize ear pressure.

Ultrasound machines emit and collect high-frequency sound waves to construct images

Before its use in medical imaging, the technology was employed in World War I for submarine detection, the same way bats use sound for echolocation of obstacles. Differences in the penetrating power of different frequencies allow medical professionals to detect different structures in the body.

The mass of a cell can be measured using hollow, vibrating beams

In 2010, scientists at MIT constructed a U-shaped device that vibrates like a guitar string with an internal fluid channel. As cells and bacteria pass through the device, its rate of vibration shifts, with greater mass creating larger shifts.

Sound can shatter glass if its frequency matches the material's natural vibrations

The sound made by an object when struck is its resonant frequency, which is the sound made when energy is dissipated. Providing energy at that frequency amplifies the vibrations, rather than allowing them to dissipate, which can deteriorate the object's structural integrity.

A new tinnitus therapy involves mild electric tongue shocks and sound exposures

Lenire, an FDA-approved bimodal neuromodulation treatment approach for tinnitus, aims to teach the brain to distract itself from tinnitus. It includes short-term daily sessions wearing a mouth device that delivers mild electrical pulses to the tongue while listening to different sounds. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

How does the cocktail party effect work?

In the 1950s, British cognitive scientist Colin Cherry started to explore how we could focus our hearing on one single source, even in a noisy environment. This video animation explains the phenomenon known as the cocktail effect and how selective hearing works. Discover how our brain is on the lookout for important or personally relevant information, even as we are occupied in other discussions.

Faraday cages protect enclosed objects by redirecting electrical currents

Constructed from conductive materials, the cage allows electrons to distribute themselves evenly throughout its surface and travel to ground, keeping the interior neutrally charged and preventing any internal electricity. The same principle blocks electromagnetic waves by redirecting the electric field component, preventing telecommunication signals from entering the apparatus.

Brain implants can help colorblind people hear colors

Colorblind artist Neil Harbisson was born into a world of grey. In 2004, he had a chip installed connected to an external color frequency sensor. Once the sensor "reads" a color, it sends a signal to the chip and plays an associated sound both in and outside Harbisson's head.

Even in a perfect vacuum, empty space is full of quantum activity

Scientists have tried to create “nothing” by removing all matter, energy, and heat from a container, but the uncertainty principle and relativity prevent such conditions within any period of time. This means the universe is full of quantum foam, which can produce forces from nothingness.

Audism is institutionalized discrimination against deaf people

Promoting the idea of hearing-at-all-costs in medical and education settings has created division in the deaf community and influenced decisions about learning sign language.

Drum shields help prevent mic bleed and dampen drum sound

Made of plexiglass or acrylic, the shields are commonly seen in churches and live venues to prevent drums from overpowering other instruments, improving the quality of the audio mix.

Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems provide motor sounds in electric vehicles

Since 2019, various global standards have set requirements for these systems, which seek to mimic combustion-engine sounds by meeting specific sonic criteria, including sound pressure, frequency, and pitch. Sound engineers design these systems to meet these requirements, ensuring that passers-by, particularly the blind and visually impaired, can detect the presence of a vehicle.

An expert recreates the voice of a 3,000-year-old mummy

Ear, nose, and throat expert David Howard discusses how his research team extracts vocal folds from preserved human tissue, which allows them to model the deceased person's larynx. From there, they can create a synthetic voice based on the organ's geometry.

Why Edwin Armstrong developed FM radio

AM radio was popular but prone to interference and static, which could be frustrating for listeners. In 1933, Armstrong, a Columbia University professor, discovered that a clearer signal could be broadcast by revising how it was captured.

What (and why) is ASMR?

ASMR podcasts and videos are appearing all over social media, so what exactly is it, and what does it do? This immersive article explains the phenomena of ASMR, which stands for autonomous sensory meridian response. ASMR is when certain sounds or...

Listen to forests around the world

Looking for something soothing to listen to? Tree.fm shares audio recordings of forests sent from people all over the world. Escape into the sounds of birds chirping, water flowing, or wind in the trees. This site offers a tool for those in need of meditative noises, and a bit of digital fresh air.

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

Some materials can absorb low-energy light and emit high-energy radiation

Through anti-Stokes cooling, incoming energy is combined with vibrations in a material's crystal lattice to produce a net reduction in its temperature. Using this effect, lasers can be directed at microchip hot spots to help keep data centers cool.

An artificial ‘lung’ protects the glass structures making up Biosphere 2

Although confined from much of the surrounding environment, B2 allows sunlight to enter, enabling its plants to engage in photosynthesis. Expansion chambers were built to protect the facility's integrity by managing changes in gas pressure resulting from temperature fluctuations.

Listen to the iconic Windows 95 startup sound

The jingle was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2025, and was commissioned by Brian Eno, the ambient musician, producer and visual artist.

Take a 360-degree tour of the particle detector at the Large Hadron Collider

The ATLAS experiment integrates concentric layers of sensors to analyze the properties of particles that emerge from the collisions of accelerated matter. More than 3 petabytes of data—equivalent to 600 years of music—can be expected to be collected from this experiment yearly (VR device-compatible).

An electric pipe organ in Germany is playing a song for 639 years

Created by composer John Cage, the Halberstadt organ first began playing the piece in September 2001, and has since made only nine chord changes. The device within a medieval church utilizes compressed air to play continuous tones. The next chord change is scheduled for August 2026.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Pickleballs' loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels

That's about the same level as a hammer striking a nail. Luckily, it's not quite as loud for a player on the receiving side of the net, at about 80 decibels, though that's still quite loud—it's equivalent to heavy traffic.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

Planeterrellas create artificial auroras that mimic the atmospheric displays of light by setting up an electric field between two metal balls in a jar filled with a small amount of air.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Explore what it's like inside a patient isolation unit, used in situations such as treating a patient or suspected patient with Ebola.

In recent years a child anxiety expert has created and tested a novel phobia and anxiety treatment approach for children, focused on changing how parents respond to the fears.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.