Briefs
Short notes on the week in sound — the news, read for you.
A cochlear implant with no outside parts goes on sale in Europe
MED-EL’s TICI UNICO puts the microphone and a 40-hour battery under the skin; 40 people had one by launch day, and the 30-patient trial…
Humans follow the pitch of a melody, zebra finches follow its color
Trained on the same five-tone sequences, people relied on pitch while finches combined pitch with formants, and musical training changed how the humans listened.
Patti Smith and Soundwalk Collective bring Correspondences to Milan
A decade of field recordings answered by Smith’s poetry fills Triennale Milano from November 26, with two live performances at the Teatro Lirico that…
Recorded reef sound drew far more fish larvae in a Hawaiian bay
An underwater speaker in Kāneʻohe Bay pulled 4 to 14 times more young fish to artificial reef blocks, and coral larvae settled most on…
A cochlear implant with upgradeable firmware makes TIME’s inventions list
Cochlear says its Nucleus Nexa is the only implant that can take new firmware after surgery, but the company has not said what upgrades…
Music written to sound sweet changed how 28 brains processed taste
In a brain-scanner study in Scientific Reports, sweet drinks paired with matching music lit up taste and reward areas more than sweet drinks alone.
Annea Lockwood’s 167-minute Danube sound map comes to Vienna
Recorded over four years and 2,850 km from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, the installation opens at the MAK on October 28…
Ontario plans to sell hearing aids without a prescription
A law change in the province’s fall economic update would let earbuds already licensed by Health Canada switch on their hearing-aid features for mild…
Music did not amplify LSD’s effect on the brain in a Montreal study
In 17 volunteers scanned with and without ambient music, the researchers expected music to deepen the drug’s effect and found a weak trend the…
Daniel Neumann tunes eight speakers to the Fridman Gallery’s own resonances
In Dilation, part of the group show Body Actualized on the Bowery from November 11, sustained drones are set to beat and shimmer in…
A vibrating material found its own single rhythm and became a time crystal
In a Nature study, 37 small robotic units buzzing at about 30 Hz merged their vibrations into larger, slower waves until the whole material…
Maia Urstad turns four decades of old radios into one Bergen show
Tidslommer, at Lydgalleriet from October 30 to December 12, reuses transmitters and obsolete radios from the sound artist’s archive as instruments and narrators.