(photo from René Rondeau)

Earlier this month, researcher/historian David Giovannoni (at First Sounds) discovered the earliest recording of a human voice, from the archives of the French Academy of Sciences. According to records, this sound recording was made by inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville on April 9, 1860 – 17 years before Thomas Edison. The recording was made on Scott de Martinville’s “phonautograph” which records sound onto a carbon (smoke)-blackened paper. Though his machine successfully recorded a human voice, Scott de Martinville had no means to play back the recording. This recording was scanned, processed, and converted into an audible clip at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

HERE IS THE AUDIO CLIP of Scott de Martinville’s recording – it is a 10 second passage from the French song “Au Clair de la Lune” (I also added a modern recording of the song for comparison).

(via ABC Science)

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In what is almost comical enough to be an article from The Onion, The New York Times breaks down a study by none other than “Dr. Grim,” a Czech scientist who correlates beer drinking and a lack of success among scientists in publishing academic papers. What is particularly interesting is that Dr. Grim correlates not just the fact that a scientist drinks beer with his or her success as a publishing author, but finds that the more a scientist drinks, the less success he or she has in publishing. Choice quotes from the article include:

Matthew Symonds, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Melbourne who has also studied factors affecting scientific productivity, called the results remarkable.

“It’s rather devastating to be told we should drink less beer in order to increase our scientific performance,” Dr. Symonds said.

and

In spite of his study, Dr. Grim, who said he would on occasion enjoy more than 12 beers in a night, is not on a campaign to decrease beer drinking among scientists. Why not? His answer: “I like it.”

The quality of writing at the New York Times has clearly never been higher.

(via SteveB; via NYT)

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(via New Scientist Video)

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Sean Dockray’s ‘Ameising Project’ – tracking the pheromone trails left by ants. Check the video.

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Spectacular Hi-Def video of the Earth rising above the Moon’s horizon. Recently taken by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (NAXA) lunar probe “SELENE/Kaguya”, launched September 14, 2007 and currently in orbit around the Moon.

(via WanderingSpace)

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Jorn Barger’s ‘Timeline of Knowledge Representation‘

This is impressive. A timeline of the recording of information, even by biological means.

Take a moment to browse through this.

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‘Woodlice’ [a.k.a. - 'Pill Bugs,' 'Sow Bugs,' 'Potato Bugs,' 'Roly-Polies'] are a common sight in piles of moist rotting wood, and are perhaps the most well known examples of an Isopod [an order of Crustaceans, they're related to crabs, lobsters, and shrimp].

At around 2,000 feet beneath the sea, isopods have gone from the size of a pea to the size of a f%&$ing lapdog. Behold the ancient looking Bathynomus giganteus – the Giant Isopod. Their large size may be the result of living on the deep ocean floor, which permits small creatures to evolve to gigantic proportions.

If you’d like to see Bathynomus giganteus in person, you won’t need a submarine: the James R. Record Aquarium [Fort Worth, Texas] has live Bathynomus giganteus on exhibit.

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