Sound and Fury
retrospectacle | February 6, 2008Sound can have very powerful effects on people, but can it really get you high? Thats what makers of the application I-Doser would have you believe---or specifically, that different 'biaural beats' can mimic the effects of alcohol, cocaine, heroin and other drugs (although, legally and harmlessly.) Obviously, I had to test this.
The makers of I-Doser allow free downloads of the program plus the 'alcohol' beat, and charge for the other intoxicating tunes. I downloaded the program. The 10 best sellers, according to the above page, are: Peyote, Ecstasy, Trip, Marijuana, Orgasm,, Lucid Dream, LSD…
retrospectacle | January 29, 2008People, I need to say this. Its never a good idea to stick things--including Q-tips--in your ears. Despite the illusion of 'cleaning' your ear canal, often Q-tips just shove the ear wax further into the canal, or worse, can cause permanent damage by rupturing an eardrum. However, I had no idea that occasionally the cotton tip could lodge into your ear canal, causing temporary (but very real) deafness.
A boy from Haverfordwest, England, can hear on one side for the first time in nine years after a cotton wool bud suddenly popped out of his ear.
Jerome Bartens, 11, was diagnosed deaf in his…
retrospectacle | January 16, 2008Are you too poor to afford an exotic beach vacation in the dead of this frigid winter? Now, with the "Noisy Instrument" (pictured below) you can bring the sounds of the ocean to your sad, depressed little ear canals while simultaneously looking like your hearing aid ran amok.
Well, actually you can't, because it doesn't seem to be listed for sale by makers Jun Murakoshi Design. Sorry for the false hope.
So how does a seashell (or the unattainable Noisy Instrument) produce that whooshing oceany sound when placed close to your ear? The answer is that the device/shell traps ambient noise…
retrospectacle | December 16, 2007People have always lost their hearing with age, but before there were hearing aids and cochlear implants, there were ear trumpets. And ear trumpet is pretty much exactly what it sounds like (a cone whose small end fits in the ear canal) and serves to better collect and amplify sound into the ear. A person hard of hearing would hold it to their ear as someone else would speak (or yell) into the large end of the trumpet. The earliest description of an ear trumpet was in the early 1600s.
Most ear trumpets were custom-made, and they varied greatly in opulence and function. Some were hand carved…
retrospectacle | August 28, 2007The German composer Beethoven, considered one of the most gifted composers of all time, died inexplicably at the age of 57 in 1827. He had been quite sick in the months leading up to his death, and in the past few years, research has determined that Beethoven likely died of lead poisoning. Studies detected toxic levels of lead in his hair and then, two years ago, in Beethoven's bone fragments. Now, Viennese forensic pathologist Christian Reiter has published a paper in the Beethoven Journal claiming that Beethoven's doctor likely inadvertently poisoned the composer with lead-containing balm…
retrospectacle | May 21, 2007 Perhaps you've heard about the wayward humpback whales, a mother and calf, who had become disoriented and began swimming inland towards Sacramento, California. They were traveling down the Sacramento River, causing a lot of grief to the Coast Guard and to marine biologists trying to think of a way to get the pair turned rightways.
Luckily, yesterday the two whales started swimming out to sea again after rescue crews lured them away by playing whale songs in the direction they wanted them to swim. This same ruse was successfully used in 1985 to divert another humpback who had swum around the…