Anything is better than...bug day

June 7, 2010 8:41 PM

Bugging Bugs (By Listening To Their Insides) - "A team of Clarkson University scientists led by Prof. Igor Sokolov are using atomic force microscopy (AFM) to record sounds emanating from inside living insects like flies, mosquitoes and ladybugs. "

Previous thread on atomic force microscopy.
A Rice scientist explains some of the "basics" of a.f.m.

posted by Burhanistan (19 comments total)

*crickets*
posted by darkstar at 9:33 PM on June 7, 2010 [8 favorites]

For real, though, the internal sounds of a fly are full on eerie.
posted by darkstar at 9:37 PM on June 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I am definitely going to throw these recordings right in the middle of otherwise-standard mixtapes for my friends, and then be like "oh by the way, that thing you're listening to? It's the inside of a ladybug." And then maybe someone can record a pop song over the sound of the inside of an insect and I'll feel like I'm finally living in the future.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:39 PM on June 7, 2010

Speaking of cool sciency sound files, I have to link also to this cool page which has various sound files of the sound of the first 100 million years of the Big Bang. My favorite: the 20-second compression.
posted by darkstar at 9:47 PM on June 7, 2010 [4 favorites]

The ladybug was surprising. Very cool post.
posted by figment of my conation at 10:45 PM on June 7, 2010

Seems to be quite a lot of reverb inside a fly.
posted by memebake at 11:43 PM on June 7, 2010

Seems to be quite a lot of reverb inside a fly.

Seems to be quite a lot of reverb inside a Human FLy, too.
posted by Skygazer at 12:13 AM on June 8, 2010

I see your big bang and raise you one montezuma oropendola.

What's that? Sorry, I can't hear you... jupiter and saturn are singing to me...
posted by sexyrobot at 12:20 AM on June 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

*crickets*

*human centipede*
posted by uncanny hengeman at 1:03 AM on June 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's the newest sound around!
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:18 AM on June 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

The fly sounds like a fly buzzing around outside a tube. The ladybug on the other hand sounds like the aphid killing machine that she is!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 4:27 AM on June 8, 2010

I don't understand how things that small can produce such low frequencies, with a wave length many thousands of times larger than themselves. 20,000 Hz has a wavelength of about 3/4". At one tenth of an inch the wavelength is that of a 100,000 Hz sound, way above human hearing. Are these sidebands of some kind?

I guess the bug body can mechanically move at any rate it wants, and that phono needle device registers it, but I don't know if that can properly be called sound.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:09 AM on June 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

If bug sings in the woods, but it can't act as a transducer to generate and emit waves in the surrounding medium, does it still bother the neighbors?
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:13 AM on June 8, 2010

Well that is just cool.
posted by MarshallPoe at 6:35 AM on June 8, 2010

Y'know, they used to call bebop "bug music"...

Thanks for the post, B'stan!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:37 AM on June 8, 2010

Very cool, especially if you open them all at once.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:21 AM on June 8, 2010

I forgot to include the link that explains the post title (and it seems they had some AFM recordings back in 1984).
posted by Burhanistan at 9:56 AM on June 8, 2010

> I guess the bug body can mechanically move at any rate it wants, and that phono needle device registers it, but I don't know if that can properly be called sound.

It's not sound as we know it, but it is a unique signature that can be detected and represented as sound.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:57 AM on June 8, 2010

Bookmarked ScienceDaily and favorited this. Thanks.
posted by Splunge at 3:31 PM on June 8, 2010