The Biden administration’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/china/2021/03/20/a-hostile-meeting-sets-the-tone-for-us-china-relations?utm_campaign=the-intelligence&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_source=third-party-host&amp;utm_content=show-notes" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">early moves</a> suggest no “reset” in relations; we recall a time when the game of ping-pong brought the countries back to the table. Although economics has transformed in the past quarter-century, the way it is taught has not; we examine <a href="https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/03/20/efforts-to-modernise-economics-teaching-are-gathering-steam?utm_campaign=the-intelligence&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_source=third-party-host&amp;utm_content=show-notes" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">efforts</a> to rewrite the textbooks. And a forgotten <a href="https://www.economist.com/prospero/2021/02/26/disco-se-aagay-fused-synth-pop-and-the-sounds-of-the-subcontinent?utm_campaign=the-intelligence&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_source=third-party-host&amp;utm_content=show-notes" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">album</a> by British-Pakistani teenagers gets another lease of life. For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here <a href="http://www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer</a> &#10;&nbsp; <hr>See <a style='color: grey; ' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.

He said, Xi said: America-China ructions

he idea for NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter began at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with a team of dedicated engineers who believed in something seemingly impossible. MiMi Aung served as the project manager on the helicopter, which has now achieved nine flights on Mars. In this episode of Gravity Assist, she shares the history of the helicopter project as well as her secrets for leading groups of people to accomplish things no one has ever done before.

Gravity Assist: A Dream, a Team, a Chance to Fly on Mars, with MiMi Aung

What do we know about the planets outside our solar system? NASA planet hunters Jessie Christiansen and Knicole Colon take us beyond...into the exciting world of exoplanets.  

Listen to NASA's Curious Universe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and SoundCloud.

NASA's Curious Universe: Let's Go Planet-Hunting!

Friday morning, 23rd July 2021. If someone had ever suggested to me to make a dawn recording at this location on a 'normal' Friday morning, I would have exclaimed: "Seriously, are you joking?". This place is so close to the city that a 'normal' Friday morning (and especially so during Winter, with its long nights and short days) would have meant, if exceedingly lucky, something like 70% heavy traffic noise and 30% dawn chorus (including not only birds but an array of various mammals as well).

But here we were, three days into a strict Covid-19 Delta lockdown... Of course, one gets curious. How much difference? After all, from the 'Nature' point of view, as opposed to the 'Human' point of view, it seems fair to say that what is 'normal' is what happens when the 'Human' is not around. In a lockdown situation, 'Human' is still very much around, but rather heavily circumscribed, for his/her own good. And this happens, also, to be beneficial to 'Nature'. So, what might that mean, in terms of 'acoustic ecology'? Well, as it turns out, it means 'a heaven of a lot'.

This excerpt from a much longer recording commences from 06:34, i.e., from mid-Winter's early twilight through to sunrise and after. (The longer recording begins several hours before first light.) Yes, there is some sporadic 'essential' traffic noise to be heard; mainly, as one would expect, in the lower frequencies; and the low-frequency rumble of the occasional 'essential' jet landing at or taking off from the local city airport. But, from this field recordist's perspective, Nature definitely owns this 'Delta' dawn. The overwhelming noise of mechanised humanity has been radically subdued by ... a microscopic virus. Of course, one feels great empathy and sympathy for humanity (after all, one is  human). But the Paradox naturally arises in one's mind, and one naturally reflects and meditates upon it...

If 'Humanity' is, as humans tend to allege, the 'pinnacle of all Nature', why is it that Nature, which utterly grounds and supports all of 'Humanity' and all of its entrepreneurial endeavours, is treated by 'Humanity' as some kind of expendable and disposable raw material, or as rubbish? Isn't it so poetically ironic that 'Humanity' is ultimately quieted not by discussions of 'ecological ethics', not by 'philosophy' - which, as Socrates once said, was born of a sense of 'wonder' at the kosmos - but by a self-concern for survival in the face of a virus that it cannot even perceive with its own natural perceptual senses? But is it really the individual's personal body and life that is of most concern here? Or is it not, rather, the current socio-political economy that is most at risk? Changing this global political economy and its behaviours is clearly not as easy as trying to change the individual body and its behaviours.

This leads to the thought, the question, the problem: What is good for human economy is not necessarily good for natural ecology, and what is good for natural ecology is not necessarily good for human economy. And so, what is to be done?

Such are some traces of the inner reflections and meditations of a field recordist, sitting damp and cold through the night, first light, and dawn, listening in sublimely grateful joy to Nature's 'beautifully musical' voicing of so many 'beautiful' voices... They are simply uttering their existence. They do not conceive of themselves as 'beautiful'. But their intrinsic 'beauty' and 'value', their intrinsic 'music', may be, and arguably should be, best understood from the perspective of a certain 'ecological aesthetics'... 

Best listened to with (good) headphones (with a flat frequency response).

Recorded on the land of the Kaurna people, which is now a Conservation Park.

2021.07.23 A Covid-19 Delta Lockdown Dawn. Winter.

When you think of NASA, you probably think about outer space.  But the first “A” in NASA  - aeronautics - means we’re busy crafting a lot closer to home.  Aerospace engineers Shivanjli Sharma, David Zahn, and Mike Guminsky are hard at work inventing and testing new ways to fly.

Listen to NASA's Curious Universe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and SoundCloud.

NASA's Curious Universe: Building Highways In The Sky

A simple sonification of the variability of the total magnetic field during BepiColombo’s second Venus flyby as measured by the Mercury Planetary Orbiter’s Magnetometer (OB sensor). 

The audio spans the same time range 12:00 to 14:30 UTC on 10 August 2021, including the closest approach at 13:51 UTC. 

Almost all high frequency noises are due to spacecraft activity. The low frequency, wind-like noises are caused by the solar wind and its interaction with Venus. The sudden bow shock crossing towards the end can be heard clearly. The data is not yet cleaned from high pitch spacecraft disturbances, but the wind-like sounds allow a rare glimpse into the solar wind interaction with a planetary atmosphere.

What is heard is the 128 Hz measurement of the high-pass filtered (0.01 Hz) total magnetic field, mapped to audio with 44.1 kHz sampling frequency. For better audibility some compression, limiting and increase in gain is applied to the signal.

Read more: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Sights_and_sounds_of_a_Venus_flyby

Credit: ESA/BepiColombo/MPO-MAG/IGEP-IWF-IC-ISAS

BepiColombo - Mission to Mercury

The sound of the solar wind at Venus

On Episode 209, NASA Artemis I flight directors Rick LaBrode and Judd Frieling detail what it will be like in Mission Control Houston during the agency’s next flight around the Moon.

Houston We Have a Podcast: Artemis Flight Directors

Costa Rica's rainforests are lively and active at night, even if it might not seem like it. A night walk in the jungle will reveal countless creatures going about their business - hunting or trying to avoid hunters, looking for food and sometimes searching for a mate. Longer version at https://youtu.be/hl7LaTWnDYA

Night in the jungles of Costa Rica

Marco Lucchi: piano, synth and treatments
Michael Grunditz: piano and synthesizer.

Part of album:
https://marcolucchi.bandcamp.com/album/september-is-here-again

Marco Lucchi & Michael Grunditz - September Is Here Again

Decades of planning. A heart-wrenching setback. Over a million mesmerizing images of space. This is the story of the Hubble Space Telescope, our window to the stars.

Part One: A Grand Adventure

In 1968, Dr. Bernie Krause was leading a booming music career. A prodigiously talented musician and early master of the electronic synthesizer, Krause was busy working with artists like the Doors and the Beach Boys and performing iconic effects for blockbuster films. Then Warner Brothers commissioned him to create an album incorporating the sounds of wild habitats, so he headed into Muir Woods with his recording equipment. What he heard changed his life and triggered a fifty-year odyssey.

Then and there, Krause decided that he wanted spend the rest of his life recording and archiving the music of wild animals and wild places. He quit Hollywood and began traveling the world. The soundscapes he recorded were full of epiphanies about the origin of our own culture and music, about the profound connectedness of creatures, and about the unseen tolls of human activity. Previous wildlife recordings isolated the calls of individual creatures, but Krause recorded habitats as a whole. He soon proposed a new theory of ecosystem functioning: that each species produces unique acoustic signatures, partitioning and occupying sonic niches such that the singing of all of the creatures in a healthy ecosystem can be heard, organized like players in an orchestra. 

Today, Krause’s astonishing archive contains sounds made by more than 15,000 species. It is, as The New Yorker aptly put it, “an auditory Library of Alexandria for everything non-human." Fifty percent of the recorded habitats no longer exist due to habitat destruction, climate change, and human din. We spoke with Krause about the beauty of and perils facing wild music, the extraordinary science of soundscape ecology, and how sound impacts the welfare of animals. The music in this episode is from Wild Sanctuary (www.wildsanctuary.com).

Ep. 39 - Bernie Krause on saving the music of the wild

Hello, we’re NASA. You may have seen our astronauts, rocket launches, or Mars rovers — but have you heard our sounds? From interviews with astronauts and engineers to stories that take you on a tour of the galaxy, NASA’s audio offerings let you experience the thrill of space exploration without ever leaving Earth.

NASA's Curious Universe: Let's Go Planet-Hunting!

NASA

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