news 2018

New research led by academics at the University of Bristol has discovered that the scales on moth wings vibrate and can absorb the sound frequencies used by bats for echolocation (biological sonar). The finding could help researchers develop bioinspired thin and lightweight resonant sound absorbers.

Researchers at the University of Sussex have become the first in the world to develop technology which can bend sound waves around an obstacle and levitate an object above it. SoundBender, developed by Professor Sriram Subramanian, Dr Gianluca Memoli and Dr Diego Martinez Plasencia at the University of Sussex, is an interface capable of producing dynamic self-bending beams that enable both levitation of small objects and tactile feedback around an obstacle.

The brains of professional beatboxers and guitarists respond to music differently when compared to each other and non-musicians, finds a new UCL-led study. The study, published in Cerebral Cortex and funded by Wellcome, sheds light on how learning and making music can affect mental processes. The researchers found that the area of the brain that controls mouth movements was particularly active when beatboxers listened to a previously unheard beatboxing track, while the 'hand area' of the guitarists' brains showed heightened activity when they listened to guitar playing.