Roland Eberlein tells some of the history of how people tried and sometimes succeeded at supplying the wind for bigger and bigger pipe organs. His essay “Technique of the Organ, ” published by the Walcker Foundation for Organ Research, goes into detail about some of the largest improvements: “The sound of the medieval organ must […]
If you want a reliable method of raising a laugh, you can always resort to references of flatulence – a comedic ploy that goes back (at least) 2000 years. But the question as to why it’s considered funny, remains, to this day, a hotly debated subject. In 2013, Professor James Spiegel of the Philosophy Department at […]
The physics of shouting into the wind are now slightly better plumbed. Details emerge in the study “Effects of flow gradients on directional radiation of human voice,” Ville Pulkki [pictured here, performing the experiment], Timo Lähivaara, and Ilkka Huhtakallio, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 143, no. 2, 2018, pp. 1173-1181. (Thanks to […]
Stuck for ideas for Christmas presents? Thought about noseflutes? Before purchasing (or making your own, as above), you can find all the information you require for an informed decision at Noseflute.org – since 2011, the definitive online resource for all things noseflute-related. A review of the ‘Nasalette’ replica, as featured in the video above, can […]
“During high-speed pursuit of prey, the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) has been observed to swing its tail while manoeuvring (e.g. turning or braking) but the effect of these complex motions is not well understood.” Prompting, perhaps, the question ‘what is a cheetah’s tail actually for?’ A joint US / South African study (2016) has made made […]
Robert Löbel, of HAW Hamburg – University of Applied Sciences, created this force-filled, masterful animation of wind. It’s his graduation film: [vimeo]80883637[/vimeo] (Thanks to John Bohannon for bringing it to our attention.)
How does one measure the wind speed inside a tornado? Bernie Vonnegut looked back at an early state-of-the-art method, and wrote a report called “Chicken Plucking as Measure of Tornado Wind Speed” [published in “Weatherwise,” October 1975, p. 217]. Vonnegut told the world why that early method, which involved a chicken carcass and a cannon, may have […]
“Effect of Wind on Stock Market Returns: Evidence from European Markets,” Hui-Chu Shu and Mao-Wei Hung, Applied Financial Economics, vol. 19, no. 11, 2009, pp. 893–904, DOI 0.1080/09603100802243766. (Thanks to Kajbaje Sudhanshu for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at National Taiwan University, report [AIR 16:1]: This study investigated the relationship between wind speed […]