How hummingbirds produce fluttering sounds during courtship

Though famous for their mid-air hovering during hunting, tiny hummingbirds have another trait that is literally telltale: males of some hummingbird species generate loud sounds with their tail feathers while courting females. ...

Robots learn to handle objects, understand places

(PhysOrg.com) -- Infants spend their first few months learning to find their way around and manipulating objects, and they are very flexible about it: Cups can come in different shapes and sizes, but they all have handles. ...

Bird songs change with environment

Just as a changing radio landscape has made it tough for Foghat to get much airplay these days, so it is for birdsongs according to new research published in The American Naturalist.

Visualize sounds and tune instruments precisely and intuitively

A novel process for analyzing and visualizing sound has been designed by the Laboratoire Sciences et Technologies de la Musique et du Son (CNRS/IRCAM/French Ministry of Culture and Communication/UPMC). The SnailAnalyser-Tuner ...

Are our textbooks wrong? Astronomers clash over Hubble's legacy

Edwin Hubble's contributions to astronomy earned him the honor of having his name bestowed upon arguably the most famous space telescope (the Hubble Space Telescope, HST). Contributions that are often attributed to him include ...

Fine-tuning galaxies with Herschel and Spitzer

(Phys.org)—Galaxies come in all shapes and sizes: from those with compact fuzzy bulges or central bars to galaxies with winding spiral arms. Astronomer Edwin Hubble classified these different breeds of galaxies by means ...

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