sonar – Southern Fried Science

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Scientists demand military sonar ban to end mass whale strandings.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Mud volcanoes, the baby cousins for hydrothermal vents and methane seeps, don’t get nearly as much attention as they deserve. There she blows! Mud volcanoes in the Mediterranean.

Underwater mud volcanoes in the Flower Garden National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico. Escaping gas can be seen rising from the mud volcano. PC: Sea Research Foundation (SRF) and the Ocean Exploration Trust (OET).

Starfish wasting disease continues to plague the Pacific: A Starfish-Killing Disease Is Remaking the Oceans.

Two photos of the same rock, 20 days apart (Neil McDaniel)

I’m Andrew Thaler and I build weird things.

Last month, while traveling to Kuching for Make for the Planet Borneo, I had an idea for the next strange ocean education project: what if we could use bone-conducting headphones to “see” the world like a dolphin might through echolocation?

The author wearing a head mounted LiDAR array, looking very pensive. — Spoilers: You can. Photo by A. Freitag.

Bone-conducting headphones use speakers or tiny motors to send vibrations directly into the bone of you skull. This works surprisingly well for listening to music or amplifying voices without obstructing the ear. The first time you try it, it’s an odd experience. Though you hear the sound just fine, it doesn’t feel like it’s coming through your ears. Bone conduction has been used for a while now in hearing aids as well as military- and industrial-grade communications systems, but the tech has recently cropped up in sports headphones for people who want to listen to music and podcasts on a run without tuning out the rest of the world. Rather than anchoring to the skull, the sports headphones sit just in front of the ear, where your lower jaw meets your skull.

This is not entirely unlike how dolphins (and at least 65 species of toothed whales) detect sound.

Tag: sonar

Mud volcanoes, starfish wasting, the stinkiest fruit, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: February 4, 2019.

I built a head-mounted LiDAR array that lets you see the world like a dolphin via vibrations sent through your jaw.