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Tarun Nayar started experimenting with connecting a synthesizer to plants and fungi during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
flora

Meet the Man Who Finds Melodies Inside Mushrooms

With his plant-based compositions, biologist-turned-musician Tarun Nayar wants to change how we engage with nature.
Radhika Iyengar March 14, 2025
Jinning, Taiwan

Beishan Broadcasting Wall

These large speakers once broadcasted propaganda across the strait to the People’s Republic of China.
The sound mirrors.
List

13 Places You Have to Hear

Listen up and explore these acoustic anomalies, “musical houses,” and government-recognized soundscapes.
Roxanne Hoorn January 3, 2025
Researchers at Flinders University in Australia use sound to study soil health.
insects

How Can You Tell If Soil Is Healthy? Just Listen to It.

Ground-breaking "ecoacoustics" use underground critter concerts to monitor a hidden ecosystem.
Ayurella Horn-Muller September 9, 2024
music

Can Music Make Your Food Taste Better?

Spice up your meals with some sonic seasoning.
Andrew Coletti May 20, 2024
A potential source of the mysterious Windsor Hum.
sounds

Podcast: Atlas Obscura Presents 'Windsor Hum' From Twenty Thousand Hertz

In 2011, residents on the U.S.-Canadian border started hearing a strange rumbling noise.
The Podcast Team April 29, 2024
See it, hear it, and maybe even feel the planetary vibrations.
sounds

Space Makes Noise—And Here’s the Eerie Song an Eclipse Sings

Thought you could only experience the astronomical event with your eyes?
Sara Mellas March 19, 2024
sounds

Podcast: Introducing Sound Detectives from LeVar Burton

Would you recognize what can only be heard but not seen?
The Podcast Team March 13, 2024
Souris, Prince Edward Island

Singing Sands Beach

A walk along this white sand beach creates a symphony.
science

Could Fish Sex Be Keeping Floridians Up at Night?

The mating calls of black drum fish might be the source of Tampa's mysterious thumping bass.
Roxanne Hoorn February 2, 2024
Wellington, New Zealand

Listening and Viewing Device

This kinetic sculpture focuses the sounds of the city when you stand inside.
The call of the green frog is said to sound like the plunk of a banjo string.
music

The Many Lives of ‘Sounds of North American Frogs’

This metamorphic record is a teaching tool, a flirtation device, a college radio favorite, a nostalgic object, and more. BOOP!
Cara Giaimo January 23, 2024
It's possible temperatures affect how easy it is to say and hear sounds.
sounds

People May Speak More Loudly or Quietly Depending on the Climate

Places that are usually hot or cold developed languages differently.
Hannah Seo December 14, 2023
Arrrrr!
sounds

The ‘Crispy R’ and Why R Is the Weirdest Letter

I made a bunch of linguists listen to this social media phenomenon and tell me what’s going on.
Dan Nosowitz November 2, 2023
Pando is a tree, a forest, and one of the largest organisms in the world.
sounds

New Strange Recordings Allow Us To Hear the Unseen World of Trees

Underground sounds may help save one of the largest organisms in the world.
Hugo Mc Cafferty October 26, 2023
Much of the soundtrack from the 1973 classic horror film, <em>The Exorcist</em>, has become canon for fans of Halloween music.
haunted

The Best Halloween Songs To Usher in the Spooky Season

From The Exorcist's "Tubular Bells" to a murder ballad by Tom Waits.
Sarah Durn October 17, 2023
There’s something ill-sounding about the Philadelphia prison’s corridors.
abandoned

Bump in the Night: The Rackety Reason People Think This Prison Is Haunted

Sound and electricity play all kinds of tricks at Eastern State Penitentiary.
Fayge Horesh October 4, 2023
A white suspension bridge across a large river
Poughkeepsie, New York

Bridge Music

This sound-art installation features songs composed using only the Mid-Hudson Bridge as an instrument.