this lossy codec » Underwater http://lossycodec.com/blog submerged in a sea of conventiality of almost impenetrable density Wed, 02 May 2012 03:44:11 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Strange ice cube growths http://lossycodec.com/blog/2009/02/09/strange-ice-cube-growths/ http://lossycodec.com/blog/2009/02/09/strange-ice-cube-growths/#comments Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:32:17 +0000 pointy http://lossycodec.com/blog/2009/02/09/strange-ice-cube-growths/ ice-rock p1000414 p1000415 I found these strange formations growing out of the ice cube tray over the weekend. Kind of freaked us out at first. Still blows my mind a bit. A quick search of the googlewebs for “ice cube odd growth formation” didn’t fail me. In fact, there’s a plethora of info out there on this strange formations. Best place to start is here, a site dedicated to ‘ice spikes’ (as they are called) with a collection of links on the subject. Pretty cool stuff. My favorite is the An account of a walk across a frozen Lake Erie in 1963 with a description of ice spikes as tall as telephone polls!
The last pic is from earlier in the winter back at the Farm in Kansas. Perhaps this ice covered rock can be explained the same way…?

]]> http://lossycodec.com/blog/2009/02/09/strange-ice-cube-growths/feed/ 0 Sounds of the Sea http://lossycodec.com/blog/2008/04/08/sounds-of-the-sea/ http://lossycodec.com/blog/2008/04/08/sounds-of-the-sea/#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:22:32 +0000 pointy http://lossycodec.com/blog/2008/04/08/sounds-of-the-sea/ Well researched article on the importance of sound to various types of sea life (mostly fish) in the New York Times today (Link). Very reminiscent of a paper I wrote a few years ago while studying and following Orca around Puget Sound. My research pointed to the same conclusion as the Times article, that sound is crucial to underwater organisms. Something I hadn’t considered before is that, according to an auspiciously named Andrew H. Bass, professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University, “Sound communication probably first evolved among fishes.” (Oddly enough, the article references another pioneer of underwater acoustics, Marie Poland Fish).

As I learned in my own research, sound is the light of the sea. Light is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum and travels fairly decently through air (the better in a vacuum). Light does NOT travel very well through water (which, for instance, is why SONAR is used underwater instead of RADAR). Sound, on the other hand, is composed of pressure waves and requires a medium through which to propagate (there is NO SOUND IN A VACUUM). Thus, conversely, the denser the medium the more efficiently (faster & farther) sound can go). Water, being denser than air, is optimally suited for acoustic communication.

I recently heard someone distinguish sound from sight by asserting that sound is the result of some physical action in our environment. At least as far as physics is concerned this is true. For a sound to happen, a vibration must occur, and a vibration is a physical response. Even our sense of hearing is a part of this process. The mechanism of our ear is itself physical – the vibrations in air moving our ear ‘drum’ and those sensations (through a magical process not yet fully understood) being turned into electrical impulses that we can ‘hear’ as words, music etc. Truly a wondrous phenomena.

Perhaps paradoxically, to fish silence itself acts as a kind of light, heightening their sensitivity to the acoustic environment by reducing interference. All of this information, combined with two other aspects of our own acoustic perception; (1) the meeting point of air & water acts as a sound barrier, almost totally eliminating our awareness of underwater sounds, (2) Our visual oriented culture tends to regard sound as a ‘secondary’ phenomena (think traffic noise, lawn mowers, even music) may be leading to the great un-addressed environmental problem of our time. If fish (as well as all other kinds of aquatic life, from wales to plankton) depend on a ‘clean’ acoustic environment to communicate (and thus ‘live’) then the impact of the global din of shipping traffic noise must be acknowledged. As few people ever get to hear what it sounds like underwater, I urge you to give a listen. The good folks I sailed around Puget Sound with are continuing there Orca research and have permanent hydrophones placed around the Sound with feeds running live online 24/7. One is here, another here, and another here.

It is difficult to understand without seeing, but most of the sound you will here are large shipping containers, probably a mile or two away.

To read the full article go here:
What’s making that awful racket? It may be fish
Be sure to listen to some of the sounds as well, here

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