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Medical Columnist Mark Roberts look at our five senses, how they work and their importance...."What's that smell?"

<p>Wonder at the impressive technological prowess of the genius engineers at NASA, as brave Ares launches. Be amazed at the sheer beauty of the mighty rocket as it it breaks the sound barrier, thundering the skies of this glorious nation.</p> <p>OK, so it looks like a flying condom.</p>

As part of the Fiat - Chrysler alliance, the Italian carmaker will bring several new models in the United States but the 500 mini car will be the only one to be sold under the Fiat badge. The car is going to be produced by Chrysler in Mexico and, according to people close to the matter, the US-based former bankrupt automaker has already required suppliers to make sure that their parts are enough for around 100,000 Fiat 500. The Fiat 500 produced in Mexico will be sold in the US, Canada and South America, Bloomberg reported, with initial production goals...

Crystals that can confine both light and vibrations could create better biosensors.The crystal traps vibrations and light in the same place.Eichenfield M., et al. Light and mechanical vibrations have been imprisoned together for the first time ever in the same place. An artificial crystal that traps both could lead to ultra-sensitive biosensors, create an interface for devices on a chip and provide an elegant cooling mechanism to help test quantum limits. The communications industry has long used specially patterned materials, called photonic crystals, to guide light through optical fibres. Similar structures, known as phononic crystals, manipulate mechanical vibrations and are...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's personal finances appear to be on sound footing even as the nation's economy struggles, a financial report he released Friday shows. Obama and his wife Michelle have $1.4 million to $5.9 million in assets, not counting their Chicago home. Their holdings include up to $265,000 in checking accounts. The president's new financial disclosure report mirrors one he filed a few months ago. Much of the Obamas' wealth comes from the president's best-sellers. The books, "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope," brought in about $2.5 million in royalties last year, according to tax...

Bush Warns "Entire Economy Is In Danger" Media reports are casting President Bush's televised address last night as both a warning to the nation on the severity of the financial crisis and an attempt to push Congress into passing his proposed bailout. A number of the stories remark on Bush's stark warnings about the health of the economy. Roll Call, for example, says Bush "sketched a frightening view of the economic danger," and used "unusually blunt and even dramatic language." The New York Times reports Bush told the country that "'a long and painful recession' could occur if Congress does...

The sound on my computer is not working properly. When I play mp3, mov, wav, wmv, wma, rm, and avi files, there is a beeping/crackling noise. Most of the time the jibberish noise is complete. Sometimes, a bit of the intended audio can be heard through the beeping/crackling. The only audio that plays well is from YouTube videos and .flv files. I have a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy sound card. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers for the sound card with no success. I have removed the sound card and reseated it with no success. My speakers are 6.1 Cambridge...

Red-shoulder hawk & wild birds sing. This video gives me a feeling of being out in the woods as a child in New England.

There’s a strange wave phenomenon that’s plagued rocket scientists for years, a lurking threat with the power to destroy an engine at almost any time. For decades, scientists have had a limited understanding of how or why it happens because they could not replicate or investigate the problem under controlled laboratory conditions. Scientists generally believe that these powerful and unstable sound waves, created by energy supplied by the combustion process, were the cause of rocket failures in several U.S. and Russian rockets. Scientists have also observed these mysterious oscillations in other propulsion and power-generating systems such as missiles and gas...

"Eerie Thumps Haunt Some Cape Residents," a headline in The News-Press of Cape Coral, Fla., said. "Noise May Cost City Big Bucks." It was the end of January 2005, during the spawning season for a fish appropriately called the black drum. Nightly mating calls were at a crescendo. But no one living in the area seemed to realize the din was of aquatic origin. The retirees who had come to spend their winters relaxing on the gentle estuaries and canals of the Gulf Coast in Florida blamed the municipal utility system. They were pushing the City Council to pay an...

Okay…I give up. I’ve got to ask for some help. Freepers have given me great advice on holsters, guns, etc., but now I need computer help. I recently re-installed XP Media Center on my Dell Dimension E310. Now, whenever I re-start I have no sound. And when I go the Control Panel, I get the “No Audio Device” with all of the selections grayed-out. And I mean all of them: The Volume section, the Sounds section, the Audio section…all of them. When I troubleshoot the hardware it says the device is working properly. I’ve searched the web (and lots of...

Scientists 'train' fish to catch themselves By Katie Franklin and agencies Last Updated: 1:01pm GMT 26/03/2008 Fish will one day be able to catch themselves if an experiment by US scientists proves successful. Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Wood's Hole, Massachusetts, are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by using a sound broadcast to attract them into a net. Here fishy, fishy: American scientists are using sound to influence the behaviour of fish They hope to release fish into the open ocean, where they would grow to market size, before enticing them into an...

The U.S. Navy certainly doesn't seem to have any shortage of unconventional weapons in development, but it looks like it still has plenty more ideas on its plate, with a recent patent revealing yet another new weapon that takes a slightly different path towards its target. While this one is unconventional, it certainly doesn't appear to be non-lethal, employing sonar to generate what the Navy describes as "acoustic remote cavitation," which can supposedly destroy torpedoes, mines, and any other "undesirable objects" in its path. What's more, the Navy says that can be done from a distance of up to one...

Why the Greeks could hear plays from the back rowAn ancient theatre filters out low-frequency background noise. Philip Ball3-23-2007 Modern actors can be heard clearly 60 metres away on a windless day. Nico Declercq. The wonderful acoustics for which the ancient Greek theatre of Epidaurus is renowned may come from exploiting complex acoustic physics, new research shows. The theatre, discovered under a layer of earth on the Peloponnese peninsula in 1881 and excavated, has the classic semicircular shape of a Greek amphitheatre, with 34 rows of stone seats (to which the Romans added a further 21). Its acoustics are extraordinary:...

I am using PowerPoint 2002. I understand that an option there is to specify the size threshold beyond which a sound file is linked rather than embedded. I have a presentation that is 13 mb. I want it to play a sound that is 4.5mb. I also want this sound to be embedded, not linked. I therefore set the threshold to be 5 mb i.e. only if the file is larger than 5 mb will it be linked. Therefore, in theory, the 4.5 mb file will be embedded. However, after I insert the sound file and save it, I find...

Danish scientists challenge the accepted scientific views of how nerves function and of how anesthetics work. Their research suggests that action of nerves is based on sound pulses and that anesthetics inhibit their transmission. Every medical and biological textbook says that nerves function by sending electrical impulses along their length. "But for us as physicists, this cannot be the explanation. The physical laws of thermodynamics tell us that electrical impulses must produce heat as they travel along the nerve, but experiments find that no such heat is produced," says associate professor Thomas Heimburg from the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen...

I have a PowerPoint presentation on my Dell Inspiron computer, running XP Home SP2. I have inserted a sound into that presentation. The sound and the PowerPoint file are in different directories. As long as I run the PowerPoint file from the hard disk, and leave it and the sound file in the same location, I realize everything should be OK. Now, suppose I want to run the presentation on another PC. I burn the PowerPoint presentation alone to a CD, then play it on the second PC. I have a feeling that I will lack the sound, right? When...

STRADIVARI'S SECRETAttuned to chemistry of a genius Some doubt his technique, but scientist says he's found key to legendary soundA starter violin costs about $200. A finely crafted modern instrument can run as much as $20,000. But even that's loose change when compared with a violin made three centuries ago by Antonio Stradivari. His 600 or so surviving violins can cost upward of $3.5 million. For more than a century, artists, craftsmen and scientists have sought the secret to the prized instruments' distinct sound. Dozens have claimed to have solved the mystery, but none has been proved right. Now, a...

We all link music and art, but only a tiny minority of us is aware of the crossover of senses in our brains, according to a UCL (University College London) neuroscientist, speaking today at the BA Festival of Science. New research has found that vision and hearing are inextricably interlinked in everyone’s brain, but only synaesthetes, who have a rare condition in which the senses mingle, are conscious of it. The results show that most of us prefer image and sound combined, rather than either in isolation. We also tend to agree on which images match particular sounds. This could...

Blind since age 3, Ben Underwood skateboards, shoots hoops and plays video games. How does he do it? Just like bats and dolphins"I'm a normal kid," says Ben, who lost his sight at 3. (above, he inspects his prosthetic eyes.) Photo by: Theo RigbyThe Boy Who Sees with Sound There was the time a fifth grader thought it would be funny to punch the blind kid and run. So he snuck up on Ben Underwood and hit him in the face. That's when Ben started his clicking thing. "I chased him, clicking until I got to him, then I...

For years desert nomads have spoken of the haunting songs of sirens which lure travellers to a waterless doom. Now, a French scientist has replicated the effect in his lab using grains of sand A strange sound rises from the cinnamon-coloured sand: a deep, almost hypnotic rhythm. It could almost be the chanting of Tibetan monks, yet the setting is rigorous and clinical – the laboratory of French physicist Stephane Douady, where a robot arm is pushing small, precisely measured amounts of sand down a plexiglass ring. Douady is a leading expert in a very narrow field. He is investigating...

Gang 'plotted to blow up Ministry of Sound' By Duncan Gardham (Filed: 26/05/2006) An alleged al-Qa'eda terrorist cell discussed blowing up the Ministry of Sound nightclub to take revenge on "those slags dancing around", a jury heard yesterday. Top, from left: Jawad Akbar, Omar Khyam and Shujah Mahmood. Bottom, from left: Salahuddin Amin, Anthony Garcia and Waheed Mahmood Pictures of six of the seven alleged British terrorists were released for the first time as the court heard a covert recording made by MI5 in the student flat occupied by Jawad Akbar in Uxbridge, west London. Akbar, then 20 and studying...

Fans of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy have long argued that he has fought the good fight ... But today, he is defending the indefensible: special interest legislation, tucked into a Coast Guard authorization bill, that would give Gov. Mitt Romney the power to veto the proposed Cape Wind energy project, even though it would be in federal waters. The project... more than five miles offshore of Cape Cod. The equivalent of burning 113 million barrels of oil per year. Proponents of Cape Wind say it is an important source of alternative, renewable energy, and it has the backing of such...

Opponents of a plan to build the first offshore U.S. wind farm in Nantucket Sound off Massachusetts were a step closer on Friday to blocking the $900 million project. Negotiators in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate agreed late on Thursday to give Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney the power to block a plan by Cape Wind Associates LLC to put 130 giant wind turbines near the resort islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Backers say the project could generate enough electricity for most of Cape Cod and nearby islands. Opponents include wealthy residents with yachts and shorefront property near...

Troy, N.Y. — A team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Purdue University, and the Russian Academy of Sciences has used sound waves to induce nuclear fusion without the need for an external neutron source, according to a paper in the Jan. 27 issue of Physical Review Letters. The results address one of the most prominent questions raised after publication of the team’s earlier results in 2004, suggesting that “sonofusion” may be a viable approach to producing neutrons for a variety of applications. By bombarding a special mixture of acetone and benzene with oscillating sound waves, the researchers caused bubbles...

For years, California political reporters have written stories around the state Republican Party convention centered on one basic theme, the party's impressive ability to consistently consume their young. Whether it's burning Pete Wilson in effigy, as activists did outside the 1991 state party convention, or forcing showdowns on divisive social issues, conservative activists have controlled the party leadership and dominated pre- and post-convention headlines for as long as most Californians can remember. So it comes as no surprise that as the party is set to gather in San Jose next month, the same group of conservatives is making noise again....

Given to environmentalist lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose fight for "green" energy apparently stops as soon as the results might spoil his view. Kennedy penned an irate New York Times op-ed in December, condemning the proposed building of wind turbines around the Nantucket Sound. While Kennedy criss-crosses the country in his jet-fuel-burning private plane stumping for alternative energy sources, he wants an exception for his own backyard. Greenpeace spokesman Chris Miller was not pleased, saying: "It's about a vision for healthy oceans, not the view from the Kennedy compound."

"If your goal is to change minds and influence people, it's probably not a good idea to begin by asserting that virtually all elected Democrats are liars. But what the hell." Two thoughts.... 1) Don't I wish... 2) Do they make one in "teddy Kennedy"?

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Researchers at Purdue University have new evidence supporting earlier findings by other scientists who designed an inexpensive "tabletop" device that uses sound waves to produce nuclear fusion reactions. The technology, in theory, could lead to a new source of clean energy and a host of portable detectors and other applications. The new findings were detailed in a peer-reviewed paper appearing in the May issue of the journal Nuclear Engineering and Design. The paper was written by Yiban Xu, a post-doctoral research associate in the School of Nuclear Engineering, and Adam Butt, a graduate research assistant in...

Water vapor builds up around an U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet as it breaks the sound barrier during a fly-by near the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) in this military handout photo taken July 27, 2005. Kitty Hawk and embarked Carrier Air Wing 5 are currently conducting operations in the Philippine Sea. The Hornet is attached to Strike Fighter Squadron 102 of Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan. Kitty Hawk is home ported in Yokosuka, Japan. REUTERS/HO/US Navy/Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Chandler

Light Speed a Barrier? To go, the children of tomorrow may have had to discover what is believed impossible today -- how to travel faster than light. Mel Zisfein, deputy director of the national Air and Space Museum, and an aerosynamicist amoung other things, has noted a similarity between the way most people today regard "C," the speed of light, and the way many people a generation or so ago regarded "a", the speed of sound. For this publication, he sketched the illustrations which appear on the following page, and drafted the following... "Some people used to look at...

The Israeli army has unveiled a new crowd-dispersal tactic, emitting painful bursts of sound at a special frequency to help break up a violent Palestinian demonstration, military officials and witnesses said. Israeli military officials confirmed soldiers used a new "nonlethal" tactic in the West Bank village of Bilin, where hundreds of demonstrators rallied against Israel's separation barrier. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity under army regulations, said the weapon uses "voice frequencies" to disperse crowds. They said Israel developed the technology over the past four years, but had never used it in a live situation before Friday. No further...

Hi, I can use some help. I just swapped out a Mother Board so as to have a new, fresh and operating Sound Card. Apparently the sound cards are now attached to the Mother Boards. (spare CPUs were available) The Sound now works however the speed of the sound is too fast. Now the "Outlook email alert" sound and the Reboot sound appears to be normal but the Windows Media Player sound is too fast. It sounds like the Chipmunks, Alvin, Simon and Theodore. I have WINDOWS 2000, Pentium 4, some 2.9 MHz(or is it GHz), 512 RAM... Any ideas...

main page Codecs, Players, Resources, and Links 4 ways to find the codec of a AVI clip Codec Instalation problems in Win9x, Nt, Win2000 Fix for Divx 4 and 5 encoding Sound Codecs Tools - Resources Window Xp Problems A word or two about ALL IN ONE CODEC patxhes:  DO NOT USE THEM! As well meaning as the creators of these regestriy hacks are, their computer is not your computer, and you really have no idea what you might be messing up your own system by you having, or not having, something on your computer that they did or didn't...

Mount St. Helens Victims' Kin Sound Off By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 13 minutes ago MOUNT ST. HELENS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Wash. - The four, their lungs filled with ash, were found inside their car after Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, with the force of a hydrogen bomb. Rescuers also discovered a cassette recorded by Ron and Barbara Seibold's children, ages 7 and 9, as the family drove toward the volcano. "They were goofing around — asking whether or not they would see lava coming out of the mountain," said Jim Thomas, an emergency worker...

Just think how eerie it would be, yet also how peaceful - people all around having conversations on their mobile phones, but without uttering a sound. Thanks to some military research, this social nirvana just might come true. DARPA, the US Department of Defense's research agency, is working on a project known as Advanced Speech Encoding, aimed at replacing microphones with non-acoustic sensors that detect speech via the speaker's nerve and muscle activity, rather than sound itself. One system, being developed for DARPA by Rick Brown of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, relies on a sensor worn around the neck...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

Oh, man . . . I'm gonna get flamed for this. But I can't resist; I thought it was kind of clever. Soundtrack is about 3 minutes long. Click on this to listen to it. Somebody's got a lot of time on his hands, lol!

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Busting the Sound Barrier >

Public release date: 31-Aug-2004 Contact: Jonathan Sherwood jonathan.sherwood@rochester.edu 585-273-4726 University of Rochester Short term memory's effectiveness influenced by sight, sound For decades scientists have believed that people can only remember an ordered list of about seven items at a time--such as seven grocery items or seven digits of a phone number--but new research from the University of Rochester has shown that this magic number varies depending on whether the language used is spoken or signed. The results in the cover story of the latest issue of Nature Neuroscience have important implications for standardized tests, which often employ ordered-list retention as...

<p>The sound of fingernails scraping a dusty chalkboard makes a listener immediately squirm and cover her ears.</p> <p>One company believes that there is real science behind such a reaction to sounds. NeuroPop is integrating neurosensory algorithms into music to create a certain mood and evoke more intense responses from listeners. The company hopes to market its compositions to the movie industry and video game companies.</p>

This is just the first verse. I am getting a mental block and i can't seem to find the words to the rest of the song. I am asking for some creative conservatives for a little help, here. It's to the tune of "Daniel My Brother" by Elton John... Here's the mp3 so far: http://www.patriotedition.com/sounds/mp3/kerryscampaign.mp3 Kerry's flip-flopping through his campaign... Says he's endorsed by foreign leaders, but he won't tell us their names, oh and, i think Kerry's telling a lie... But those dems love Kerry... He is the apple of their eye... NEED HELP for the rest! LOL

I'm a college student in Tennessee who has a conservative political talk show on my university radio station. I like to play audio clips (like the real talk show guys do), but I have limited resources finding good ones. So far, I've had to use those available on Rush's site, Foxnews, and a few other obvious sources. Does anybody know of good websites that have recent political audio available for download?

Free Republic's own Libertina, chair of the Puget Sound Chapter, called a chapter picnic on Saturday, September 20th, in beautiful Sunnyside Park in Steilacoom, WA, right on Puget Sound. The location she chose was beautiful and spectacular...

Anyone believing that the state process of eminent domain is fair for citizens has not gone through it. It is a traumatic and trying experience and one which is calculated to force average citizens to accept what is offered by the state to avoid going through their eminent domain proceedings. Below are listed some of the experiences you will encounter on the way if you choose to fight the state and proceed to an eminent domain hearing. On October 2, 2003 we must move from our home and property at 6230 Golden Gate Parkway Naples Florida by court ordered dictate...

Sound of silence gives you that eerie feeling September 12 2003 at 04:36PM London - The haunted feeling given off by certain buildings is the result of low frequency "infrasound" vibrations, according to a team of British scientists who have conducted a series of experiments in a concert hall. Richard Wiseman told a conference in the northern English city of Manchester on Monday his tests showed extreme bass sounds, like those emitted by some church organs or from the wind on windows and chimneys, could have a profound effect on feelings. "It makes people feel extremely strange, even though they...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 September 12 A Note on the Perseus Cluster Credit: A. Fabian (IoA Cambridge) et al., CXC, NASA Explanation: A truly enormous collection of thousands of galaxies, the Perseus Cluster - like other large galaxy clusters - is filled with hot, x-ray emitting gas. The x-ray hot gas (not the individual galaxies) appears in the left panel above, a false color image from the Chandra Observatory. The bright...

County residents to hold a 'Take Back Your Community' rally Tuesday, September 9, 2003By MIREIDY FERNANDEZ, mmfernandez@naplesnews.com Collier County leaders are public servants and need to be reminded of who they work for — the people. Behind that premise stand dozens of county residents who plan to voice their grievances against county government at a rally today, the same day the five-member County Commission is scheduled to meet. AT A GLANCE A "Take Back Your Community" rally is planned today at the following locations: 4 p.m. — A "Freedom Drive" will take place at Max Hasse Park, 3990 Golden Gate...

***** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ***** Dateline: Wednesday, September 03, 2003Subject: “Take Back Your Community” kicks off with rally at commissioners meeting.From: The Citizens Action Team (cataction.com) 304-7535 The “Take Back Our Community” movement begins Tuesday Sept. 9th with freedom drive and kickoff rally at Collier government complex. NAPLES, FLORIDA - In a show of unity, a coalition of high profile citizen groups will be conducting a “freedom drive”, originating from 2 Collier staging locations and culminating with a rally at the Government complex to coincide with the scheduled Collier Commission meeting. The purpose of the rally and freedom drive is...