Across Acoustics
Episodes
Wave Phenomena in Vibroacoustic Systems
19 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Manipulating the scattering of waves can allow engineers to achieve numerous goals, like reducing unwanted noise or eliminating potentially destructiv...
POMA Student Paper Competition: New Orleans
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, find out what the next generation of acousticians is researching! In this episode, we talk to the latest round of POMA Student Paper ...
A New Way to Measure Bat Hearing
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Studying bats' hearing can be tricky due to their small size, making certain styles of measurement used for larger echolocating mammals unavailab...
Sonic Deception in World War II
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You may have heard of the "ghost army" of World War II—a set of rubber tanks used by the US Army to mimic active battlefields in Europe. W...
The Unique Acoustics of Traditional Chinese Interlocked Timber-Arched Covered Bridges
24 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The traditional Chinese structure of the interlocked timber-arched covered bridge serves multiple purposes within Chinese culture—both as a physical...
The Eras of Taylor Swift's Changing Dialect
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Longitudinal studies of how an individual's accent changes over the course of their life are hard to come by. Fortunately, Taylor Swift's de...
The Acoustic Impacts of Marine Energy Converters
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In an effort to develop renewable energy, scientists have turned to the sun, the wind, and now the ocean. With these new forms of energy harvesting, c...
Advances in Soundscape
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A lot has changed in the twelve years since JASA's first special issue on soundscape research. This episode, we talk to the editors of the recent...
A New Way to Diagnose Osteoporosis
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ultrasonic tomography has been applied in many fields, from geophysics to engineering, and now to medicine. In this episode, we talk with Aaron Chung-...
Iconicity and Sound Symbolism
11 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For a long time, it was believed that words were mostly arbitrary symbols. However, with advances in our ability to study speech, it has become clear ...
Reproducing Soundscapes with the AudioDome
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Recreating the natural hearing experience has long challenged researchers who study auditory perception. Recently, ambisonic panning has been develope...
An Archeoacoustic Look at Two Hindu Temples
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Much of the research into the historical acoustics of worship spaces has focused on Christian churches or Islamic mosques. However, little is known ab...
Student Paper Competition: Environmentally Friendly Acoustic Design, Spatial Impulse Response Measurements, and Acoustic Spectrometers
26 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This episode showcases the latest winners of the POMA Student Paper Competition: First, Jonathan Michael Broyles (University of Colorado, Boulder) dis...
Large Venue Acoustics
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Large venues like amphitheaters and stadiums are used across the world for a variety of purposes, hosting everything from sporting events to concerts ...
Things That Go Boom
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we explore things that go boom: from volcanic eruptions to underwater ordinances to the (relatively) tiny explosions of gunshots. Tho...
Show Your Scattering Coefficients
24 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The phenomenon of acoustic scattering, when a sound wave bounces off a surface and is redirected in different directions because of the surface textur...
Reducing Shipping Noise for Fatter, Happier Marine Mammals
20 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Human-made noise from shipping is an ongoing problem for aquatic life. However, actually implementing measures to reduce noise can be costly and time ...
Acoustic Levitation and Trapping
16 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Acoustic levitation allows objects to be suspended in air or in liquids without falling. In this episode, we speak with Philip Marston (Washington Sta...
Student Paper Competition: Modeling Trumpets and Falcon 9 Flyback Noise
02 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is part two of our interviews with the POMA student paper winners from our meeting in Ottawa. First, we talk with Miranda Jackson (McGill...
Student Paper Competition: A Small Ship-Like Structure, Underwater Micronavigation, and Rotorcraft Noise
11 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode, we talk to a few of the latest round of POMA Student Paper Competition winners from the 186th ASA Meeting in Ottawa about their exciting...
An Ultrasound-Based Touchscreen
28 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Current touchscreen technology has its limitations. In this episode, we talk with Jérémy Moriot (Université de Sherbrooke) about his team's de...
Continuous Active Sonar's Impact on Killer Whales
15 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When pulsed active sonar was found to cause mass strandings of whales, researchers turned to the quieter continuous active sonar for underwater monito...
How Classroom Acoustics Fail Autistic Students and Teachers
23 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We know noisy classrooms and learning environments can negatively impact students and teachers. However, these problems can be compounded for those wi...
Can Sound Be Used to Diagnose Arteriosclerosis?
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Because cardiovascular disease is the world's leading cause of death, researchers have been looking for ways to diagnose it early. Low-frequency ...
Ultrasound Transducers for Measuring Martian Wind Speeds
26 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We have yet to fully understand the wind on Mars, even though it transfers heat, momentum, and molecules from the surface. Traditionally, heat loss an...
Acousto-Optics: Sensing Sound with Light
12 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we dive into the world of acousto-optics, where light is used to visualize and measure sound-- particularly acoustic phenomena that a...
New Research Roundup: Music as Noise, Instruments as Dynamic Sound Sources, and Modeling Piano Soundboards
22 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode highlights three recent articles from the field of musical acoustics. First, we talk to Elvira Brattico (Aarhus University) about her res...
Why don't speech recognition systems understand African American English?
08 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Most people have encountered speech recognition software in their day-to-day lives, whether through personal digital assistants, auto transcription, o...
Student Paper Competition: Emotions of Drums, Acoustic Black Holes, Ocean Noise, and More!
24 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode, we talk to a new round of POMA Student Paper Competition winners from the 185th ASA Meeting in Sydney about their exciting research ende...
Measuring the Big Impact Vibration Has on Tiny Microphones
10 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The tiny microphones used inside hearing aids can be very sensitive to vibration of the device, resulting in annoying feedback. Testing how sensitive ...
We Don't All Talk the Same: Teaching Linguistic Diversity
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Speech Science courses are a key component to the curriculum within a variety of disciplines, but coursework is frequently lacking in terms of represe...
Lincoln Center and the Greatest Acoustic Failure of the 20th Century
06 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the aftermath of World War II, New York City wanted to built a new home for its orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and secure its place a cultur...
Deep Faking Room Impulse Responses
22 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's not always feasible to measure the sound field generated by an acoustic source; instead, scientists have to model to come up with a best gue...
Late Night Mystery Calls in the Mariana Archipelago
08 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
While analyzing acoustic data from the Mariana Archipelago, Angela Szesciorka (Oregon State University) noticed something funny: a signal unlike any o...
Conservation Bioacoustics: Listening to the Heartbeat of the Earth
25 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Recent advances in technology have allowed scientists to gather larger quantities of acoustic data from locations more remote than ever before. As a r...
What is an acoustic metamaterial?
11 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Metamaterials have been a hot topic in the acoustics community since the late 1990s, but there's no consensus among researchers as to what a me...
Quiet Down! Lowering the Recommended Occupational Noise Exposure Limit
26 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) recommended exposure limit for occupational noise is often cited as the upper li...
Speech research methods and gender-diverse speakers
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Traditionally, speech researchers have asked participants to classify speakers on a binary scale for gender. However, as our understanding of gender c...
How well can infants distinguish unfamiliar voices?
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Infants can distinguish caregivers' and other familiar voices early in life, and can even tell the difference between two unfamiliar female voice...
What is silence?
08 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
More precisely, is silence the absence of sound? (What is sound, anyway?) In this episode, we get a little philosophical, talking with Bill Yost (Ariz...
Wait, What's That?: Weird Data in Underwater Acoustics
18 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Oftentimes, when a scientist studying underwater acoustics begins an experiment, they have a specific goal in mind... but then there's a bloop or...
Student Paper Competition: Chicago
04 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Another meeting, another round of amazing student research! This episode, we talk to winners of the POMA Student Paper Competition from the 184th meet...
Exploring Timbre of Stradivari Violins
20 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why is the sound quality of some violins preferred over others? In this episode, we talk to Carlo Andrea Rozzi (National Research Council of Italy) ...
Optimizing Concrete Floors for Building Acoustics
06 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The manufacturing and production of concrete construction building materials creates roughly 10% of global carbon emissions. As a result, architectura...
Considering Classroom Soundscapes for Young Students
23 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The sound environment of a classroom can significantly impact the experience of students, particularly for young learners. Yet most research on primar...
Discovery of Sound in the Sea
09 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Started after a mysterious beaching of beaked whales and dolphins, Discovery of Sound in the Sea (DOSITS, https://dosits.org/) has been providing educ...
Music Mixing for Listeners with Hearing Impairment
25 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Musical mixes are typically created with normal-hearing listeners’ preferences in mind. How do the preferences of listeners with hearing impairment ...
An Acoustician's Guide to SciCom
11 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we talk to the ASA's very own Keeta Jones, the Education and Outreach Coordinator, about science communication: everything from ...
Do shrews echolocate?
21 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We know that dolphins and bats echolocate, but less is known about the ultrasonic vocalizations of other animals-- including the northern short-tail...
Reconsidering Classic Ideas in Speech Communication
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Most researchers know the seminal articles that have impacted their field. Sometimes, though, the research in those articles can get misinterpreted or...
Quieter Airplane Landings
24 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The annoyance caused by airplane noise can have adverse effects on those living near airports. Can anything be done when the plane lands to mitigate t...
Do bats change their calls depending on the weather?
10 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Researchers know that bats will alter the calls they use for echolocation depending on their task or environment. In this episode, we talk to Léna de...
ASA Standards
20 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Besides hosting exciting meetings and publishing the latest in acoustics research, the Acoustical Society of America has another branch: ASA Standards...
How loud is NASA's Space Launch System?
05 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The answer: As loud as 40 million bowls of Rice Krispies. In this episode, we talk with Kent Gee of Brigham Young University about his recent research...
Noise-Induced Hearing Disorders
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Noise can damage hearing in numerous ways: hearing loss, tinnitus, difficulty hearing in noisy settings, as well as other sound detection or sound pro...
Student Paper Competition: Moth-Inspired Microphones, Rocket Noise Mitigation, and Deformable Microphone Arrays
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Could moths’ hearing be the key to figuring out how to localize sound with tiny microphones? How do we prevent rocket launch noise from damaging t...
Lead Vocal Levels in Pop Music
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Is there an ideal level for lead vocals compared to accompaniment in popular music? Researchers at University of Oldenburg investigated this question ...
Headphone Sound Quality: What Do Listeners Prefer?
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As mobile technology has evolved, allowing people to carry music, movies, books, and a host of other types of infotainment in their pockets, headphone...
Save the Fishes!: Offshore Wind Farm Noise and Aquatic Life
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Offshore wind farms are a sustainable option for producing energy, but little is known about their effect on fish on aquatic invertebrates. In this ep...
A Different Way to Look at Soundscape Data
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Is there one "true" perception or assessment of a soundscape, or is it actually a combination of many different perspectives/assessments? Ho...
JASA Express Letters: A Retrospective
31 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In honor of JASA Express Letters’ (JASA-EL) two-year anniversary as a fully independent, gold open access journal, we’re taking a trip down memory...
Student Paper Competition: How does a musician’s body affect what they play?
06 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Studying music poses a conundrum: real musicians don’t play consistently, while machines designed to play an instrument in exactly the same way ever...
Student Paper Competition: Additive Manufacturing to Improve Soundproofing
30 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Typically, to block sound of a particular frequency, a structure of comparable wavelength dimensions is required. For low-frequency sounds with very l...
Student Paper Competition: Understanding the Falcon-9’s “Triple Boom”
23 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Falcon-9 is the most-launched rocket in recent years, but a lot of what we know regarding rocket launch noise dates back to the Apollo era. In thi...
Student Paper Competition: Modeling the Effects of Aircraft Noise
16 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The noise from aircraft can have numerous unwanted effects on bystanders on the ground; a major question in noise research is how to reduce aircraft n...
Student Paper Competition: Modeling Unexploded Ordnances in the Ocean
09 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past 100 years or so, ordnance has entered aquatic environments around the US at military testing and training sites. As these sites transiti...
Sound Speed in Bourbon
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Does sound travel differently in Kentucky bourbon than it does in other types of alcohol? Stanley A. Cheyne of Hamden-Sydney College pondered this que...
Ultrasonic Hearing in Cats
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Did you know your cat is eavesdropping? Not on you (boring human), but on the ultrasonic sounds of its tiny prey! In this episode, we speak to Charlot...
When do gender differences start to emerge in children’s speech?
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Even though the vocal tract is the same regardless of a child’s sex before puberty, researchers have found time and again that adults can perceive g...
Modeling of Musical Instruments
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How does a piano string compare to an ideal physicist’s string? Are there equations that describe the sound a recorder produces? Can the quality of ...
Ocean Acoustics in the Changing Arctic
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Climate change has led to a reduction in amount of ice covering the Arctic as well as the structure of the ocean. These changes have impacted many asp...
Performing Hearing Research Remotely
27 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The COVID-19 pandemic forced many researchers in the fields of psychological and physiological acoustics to scramble to find new ways to perform heari...
Psychoacoustics of Tinnitus
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Psychoacoustics of Tinnitus: Lost in Translation,” Acoustics Today, 17(1), 35-42. https://acousticstoday.org/psychoacoustics-of-tinnitus-lost-in-...
Acoustic effects of medical, cloth, and transparent face masks on speech signals
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Acoustic effects of medical, cloth, and transparent face masks on speech signals The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA)https://doi.or...
Ultrasonic Vocalization of Weddell Seals
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Weddell seals produce ultrasonic vocalizationsThe Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA)https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0002867Authors: Paul A...
Lung Ultrasound
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Deep learning applied to lung ultrasound videos for scoring COVID-19 patients: A multicenter study The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (...
Nonlinear Time-warping Made Simple
04 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nonlinear time-warping made simple: A step-by-step tutorial on underwater acoustic modal separation with a single hydrophone The Journal of the Acoust...
Virtual Sounds
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Are Virtual Sounds Real?Acoustics Today; https://acousticstoday.org/are-virtual-sounds-real-michael-vorlander/Author: Michael VorländerIn this episod...
Horror Film Sound
28 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Terrifying film music mimics alarming acoustic feature of human screamsThe Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) https://doi.org/10.11...
Penguin Ear Morphology
11 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
3D-Visualization of the Ear Morphology of Penguins (Spheniscidae): Implications for Hearing Abilities in Air and Underwater Proceedings of Meetings on...
Measurement and simulation of steered acoustic fields generated by a multielement array for therapeutic ultrasound
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Measurement and simulation of steered acoustic fields generated by a multielement array for therapeutic ultrasoundJASA Express Letters 1, 012001 (2021...
Acoustics Apps: Interactive simulations for digital teaching and learning of acoustics
29 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Acoustics Apps: Interactive simulations for digital teaching and learning of acoustics The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 149, 1175 (20...
Preferred dimension ratios of small rectangular rooms
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Preferred dimension ratios of small rectangular roomsJASA Express Letters 1, 021601 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0003450Author: Jens Holger Rind...
Acoustics and Vibration of Baseball and Softball Bats
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“Acoustics and Vibration of Baseball and Softball Bats,” Acoustics Today, 13(4), 35-42. https://acousticstoday.org/acoustics-vibration-baseball-so...
Phonetic change in an Antarctic winter
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“Phonetic change in an Antarctic winter”The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 146, 3327 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5130709Author...
Individual differences in the acoustic properties of human skulls
25 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“Individual differences in the acoustic properties of human skulls” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 146, JASA-EL Special Section ...
How loud is X-59’s shaped sonic boom?
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“How loud is X-59’s shaped sonic boom?”Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 36, 040005 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0001265Authors: William Jeffrey Doebler ...
Rapid quantitative imaging of high intensity ultrasonic pressure fields.
14 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“Rapid quantitative imaging of high intensity ultrasonic pressure fields”The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 148, 660 (2020); https:/...