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Anyone who works in an office with an open floor plan becomes aware of a major downside of these otherwise collaborative spaces: It is impossible to hold confidential meetings with colleagues. One solution developed by a German textile manufacturer is a system of sound-insulating curtains to create temporary, sound-proofed “variable zones” within the open office, where private conversations can occur. The system will be described by Jonas Schira of Gerriets GmbH during Acoustics ’17 Boston.

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Ultrasound -- sound with frequencies higher than those audible to humans -- is commonly used in diagnostic imaging of the body's soft tissues, including muscles, joints, tendons and internal organs. A technology called high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is also being explored for therapeutic uses including the removal of uterine fibroids and the destruction of tumors. A suite of noninvasive, adaptive focusing techniques -- that allow ultrasonic beams to be focused through the rib cage and skull -- will be described during Acoustics ’17 Boston.

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The way you hear and interpret the sounds around you changes as you move. That’s how sound in the real world works. Now imagine if it worked that way while you were listening to a recording of a concert or playing a video game in virtual reality. During Acoustics ’17 Boston, Ivan J. Tashev and Hannes Gamper, with Microsoft’s Audio and Acoustics Research Group, will explain how they are using head related transfer functions (HRTF) to create an immersive sound environment.

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In 22 years, Karin Heineman has been behind the camera for hundreds of scientific stories. By bringing a plethora of scientists into the world of media, she has garnered unique expertise in bridging the communication gap between those in and out of the lab. During Acoustics ’17 Boston, Heineman, executive producer of Inside Science TV, will share some of her experience and highlight important elements of capturing the stories of science with video.

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In passive elastography, the elasticity of tissue is measured using the body’s own propagation of shear waves, which enables more effective imaging deeper inside the body in an even more noninvasive way than traditional elastography and may be used for cancer detection. Stefan Catheline, researcher at the University of Lyon will discuss this and other elastography advances during Acoustics ’17 Boston.

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Sound permeates the human experience and gets our attention, sometimes traumatically so. Consider the car horn. It is a widespread practical application of this noise-trauma-alert principle -- and an increasing source of noise pollution worldwide as the global traffic population grows. It also is the subject of new noise pollution research to be presented during Acoustics ’17 Boston. The study introduces a new pedestrian-friendly car-horn sound identified through the Mean Option Score.

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The blood-brain barrier protects the brain and central nervous system from harmful chemicals circulating in the blood but also prevents delivery of drugs that could help treat patients with brain cancers and brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. With recent advances in technology, the blood-brain barrier can now be opened safely, noninvasively and in a targeted manner using ultrasound. One of the newest approaches aiming to advance this research will be presented during Acoustics ’17 Boston.

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Paris’ Cathedral of Notre Dame has a ghost orchestra that is always performing, thanks to a sophisticated, multidisciplinary acoustics research project that will be presented during Acoustics ’17 Boston. In the project, computer models use recordings from a live concert held at the cathedral and detailed room acoustic simulations to produce a novel type of audience experience: a virtual recreation of the live performance using spatial audio and virtual reality.

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People who are visually impaired will often use a cane to feel out their surroundings. With training and practice, people can learn to use the pitch, loudness and timbre of echoes from the cane or other sounds to navigate safely through the environment using echolocation. Bo Schenkman, an associate professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, will present a summary of some aspects of his work on human echolocation during Acoustics ’17 Boston.

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Acoustics ’17 Boston, the third joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the European Acoustics Association, will be held this month in Boston. The meeting will cover acoustics across a diverse range of fields and applications including human health, technology, animal communication, education and more.

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What are the characteristics of the way you say, “hello,” (or anything else for that matter) that makes you recognizable over the phone? Despite the increasing amount of literature on personal voice quality, very little is actually known about how to characterize the sound of an individual speaker. Two researchers from UCLA in Los Angeles, California, Patricia Keating and Jody Kreiman, are joining forces to apply acoustics tools to their linguistics research, investigating this question.

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Even if they don’t understand the words, infants react to the way their mother speaks and the emotions conveyed through speech. What exactly they react to and how has yet to be fully deciphered, but could have significant impact on a child’s development. Researchers in acoustics and psychology teamed up to better define and study this impact.

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Open office plans are becoming increasingly common in the workplace -- offering a way to optimize available space and encourage dialogue, interaction and collaboration among employees. However, a new study suggests that productive work-related conversations might actually decrease the performance of other employees within earshot -- more so than other random, meaningless noises.

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What does the detection of enemy planes during WWI have to do with locating endangered Mojave Ground Squirrels? They both benefit from a technique called acoustic beamforming which uses multiple devices to find the point of intersection and pinpoint location. A team of researchers is developing a system using this WWI-era technology to detect and locate endangered Mojave Ground Squirrels on Edwards Air Force Base. They aim to assess populations and any impact the base's activities may be having on the population.

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Hearing is a vital sense for marine mammals who use it to forage, communicate and navigate. Many of these mammals produce specific vocalizations that can be used to identify the species and track their locations via acoustic monitoring. Traditionally, scientists have used underwater microphones to listen for marine mammals, either on the seafloor or towed behind a boat. But now scientists can use autonomous underwater vehicles, gliders and floats specially equipped with hydrophones, to listen to marine mammals in ways impossible until now.

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Musical styles and strengths vary dramatically: Some musicians are better at sight reading music, while others are better at playing by ear. Does this mean that their brains are processing information differently? This is a question posed by Eriko Aiba, an assistant professor in Tokyo, Japan who will present research that delves into the various ways the brain engages in music signal processing.

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What would the paradise of Hawaii be without swaying coconut palms, with succulent fruit that is almost synonymous with the tropical island? Unfortunately, that may be the future of the island unless scientists find some way to stop the destructive Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle which feeds on the coconut palms, stripping them of their leaves and decimating the vegetation. A team of researchers at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu are using acoustics to help to understand this beetle, its habits and movements in order to protect the state’s valuable natural resources.

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In a study to be presented during the 172nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the 5th Joint Meeting with Acoustical Society of Japan, a Canadian researcher has new data about the vocal attractiveness of consonants. Vowels are already well studied and there are several acoustic cues intrinsic to vowels -- such as pitch -- that effect listeners’ judgments of attractiveness. According to the researchers, consonants are different.

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While studying bats, researchers noticed a large group of muscles running straight down the middle of the top of the bat’s skull. A set of muscles like this is quite unusual in size and location for a small mammal, so they questioned their purpose. During the 172nd ASA meeting, the researchers will present their work exploring the muscle's complex activity patterns during sonar performance.

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Corn is the leading grain crop in the U.S. but a lack of understanding about the mechanics involved in wind-induced corn stalk failure has hindered further improvements in corn production. Now, by applying mechanical engineering tools and techniques, a group of engineers and plant scientists are making headway addressing this problem. The work will be presented at the 172nd ASA meeting.

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The 172nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) will be held November 28- December 2, 2016, at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort. The location was picked with all travelers in mind, as it is also the 5th Joint Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan. Over 2,050 abstracts were submitted for the meeting on sound and its applications in physics, engineering, medicine, linguistics and more. Reporters are invited to attend in person for free.

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On average, there are about 480,000 patients in hospitals in the United States — each generating about 135 clinical alarms per day. But studies show that more than 90 percent of these alarms result in no action, and alarm errors occur roughly 8 million times per day. During the ASA 171st meeting, Ilene Busch-Vishniac, an acoustical consultant, will present a model that predicts how often alarm errors will occur based on several recent studies of hospital alarms.

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Researchers at UCLA have recently examined the speech patterns of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina in a variety of settings to determine whether the presidential candidates followed the same voice modulation strategies. They researchers found that despite the politicians' varied messages, their vocal delivery remains the same.

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Researchers at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway have combined a laboratory ultrasound technique called "sonoporation" with the commercially-available chemotherapy compound Gemcitabine to increase the porosity of pancreatic cells with microbubbles and to help get the drug into cancer cells where it is needed. They report some initial results at this week’s ASA’s 171st meeting in Salt Lake City.

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We tend to perceive speakers as masculine or feminine rather quickly. These snap judgments are based on acoustic information from the speakers’ voices. But some vocal qualities deemed “feminine” can overlap with acoustic cues for “clear speech,” which is a set of changes speakers make when they suspect their listener is having a difficult time hearing. This overlap inspired researchers to explore gender perception via speech — largely to determine whether adopting clear speech could help transgender people who would like to sound more feminine.

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Light doesn’t travel very far underwater so the navy uses sound to transmit messages. The speed of underwater sound depends on a combination of temperature, salinity and pressure. Understanding sound speed is crucial for transmitting messages, detecting enemy submarines and avoiding marine animals. As climate change elevates temperatures, understanding underwater sound speed will become increasingly important.

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Vocal fatigue is a common complaint among teachers and one of the most debilitating conditions that can lead to vocal damage. The typical symptoms include hoarseness, vocal tiredness, muscle pains and lost or cracked notes. However, the actual physiological mechanism of vocal fatigue is still being explored. Now, a group of researchers have found a potential link between pulmonary function and the symptoms of voice fatigue unique to women, the predominate population of teaching workforce.

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Scientists at the Australian National University have developed the Time Reverse Imaging Method to take real-time data from the ocean sensors and use that information to recreate what the tsunami looked like when it was born. Once scientists have the tsunami source pinpointed, they can use it to make better predictions about what will happen once the waves reach shore. This new method is fast enough to compete with existing algorithms but much more accurate.

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In 2007, a new golf club hit the market. The distribution of mass in the club head made it less likely to twist, making an off-center hit less likely, but it had a drawback: a loud noise when it struck the ball, piercing through the tranquility of a golf course. The club never grew popular among players, with many saying they disliked the noise. Researchers at Penn State set out to find the cause of the offensive clang.

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A dolphin chasing a tasty fish will produce a stream of rapid-fire echolocation clicks that help it track the speed, direction and distance to its prey. Now researchers have developed a model that could yield new insights into how the charismatic marine mammals make these clicks – and it turns out snot may play an important role. The researchers will present their model at the 171st meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.

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Researchers are studying the lowest vocal register used by chorus singers to better understand the emotional properties of music. This lowest register is called vocal fry, and it sounds a little bit like a growl or a croak. The technique has become popular in today’s pop and country music. When female singers use this lowest register, listeners rate her as more expressive, according to a small study. The opposite is true for men.

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If you live in Waco, a gas lawn mower at night likely wouldn’t violate the decibel limit, even though it may in most towns. The large difference is just one example of the diversity of laws regulating noise throughout the U.S. The Noise Pollution Clearinghouse, a national non-profit that gathers noise-related resources and advocates for quieter public spaces, has compiled a database of noise ordinances for nearly 500 of the largest communities in the U.S.

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Researchers investigating the commonalities in pitch delivery by presidential candidates, the biological basis for dolphin echolocation, and an early warning system to detect tsunamis will describe their latest findings during a webcast press event on Tuesday, May 24, 2016. The event will be streamed live at 1:00 p.m., EDT, from the 171st meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), which takes place May 23-27 in Salt Lake City. Additionally, the webcast will be available for download 24 hours afterwards.

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Concerts held within Hanoks are popular tourist attractions in Korea, and when a team of researchers from Soongsil University in Seoul discovered this, they set out to explore whether the homes’ excellent acoustics stem from their architectural structure as well as materials. During ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting, being held Nov. 2-6, in Jacksonville, Fla., the team will describe their findings analyzing the harmony that results from playing traditional instruments within Hanoks.

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While scientists are still investigating the causes of colony collapse disorder, beekeepers could benefit from technologies that help them track the health of their hives, and researchers have developed a device that can monitor hive activity without disturbing the bees. It picks up and analyzes vibrations from special types of bee vocalizations and has successfully tracked changes in bee activity from day to night, and seasonally, by monitoring the occurrences of this specific signal. The team will present their results at ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting.

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A Himalayan singing bowl operates like a wine glass -- slide your fingertip, or a wooden stick called a puja, around its rim to hear its soothing tones. The bowls have been used for meditation and worship for centuries, but have found new audiences in contemporary music. Researchers have studied the motion of the bowl and revealed the origin of “chatter,” which occurs when the puja is played against the bowl. The study will be presented at ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting.

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Researchers have found an alternative choice for songbird study: a small non-migratory songbird commonly found in North America known as the black-capped chickadee. Female black-capped chickadees sing and their songs are acoustically distinct from the songs of their male counterparts. What’s more, the researchers say, both male and female birds can tell apart the songs of the two sexes. Sturdy will describe the new findings in a talk at ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting.

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Utah Valley University physicists are literally applying rocket science to the field of medical diagnostics. With a few key changes, the researchers used a noninvasive ultrasonic technique originally developed to detect microscopic flaws in solid fuel rockets to successfully detect cell stiffness changes associated with certain cancers and other diseases. Brian Patchett will describe the group’s method, which uses sound waves to manipulate and probe cells, during ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting.

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Researchers have examined the relationship between the sound structures of a worldwide sample of human languages and climatic and ecological factors including temperature, precipitation, vegetation and geomorphology. The results, to be presented at ASA’s 2015 Fall Meeting, Nov. 2-6, show a correlation between ecological factors and the ratio of sonorant segments to obstruent segments in the examined languages. This supports the hypothesis that acoustic adaptation to the environment plays a role in the evolution of human languages.

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The Asian Citrus Psyllid is loathed by orange farmers because they spread an even more pernicious foe: the bacteria Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, which cause a disease called citrus greening that turns the trees' leaves a sickly yellow and makes the fruit bitter and stunted. There is no cure, and the infected trees usually die within a few years. To halt the spread of the disease, researchers are developing vibration traps that hijack psyllid mating calls to locally bring their populations under control.

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One way to monitor impacts to the ecosystem is by observing the changes in occurrence or distribution of sea birds and marine mammals. So a team of researchers is “eavesdropping” on marine mammals within the Arctic to monitor their presence year-round. Kathleen Stafford, oceanographer for the Applied Physics Lab at the University of Washington, will describe their work and the passive acoustic monitoring techniques involved at ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting.

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We all love belting our lungs out at sporting event, hurling insults and encouragements in turn, but does it actually have an effect on either team’s performance? A study conducted by a student at the University of Nebraska seeks to answer this question. The study was performed by Brenna Boyd, an undergraduate research assistant at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s. Boyd will present her findings at ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting.

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Researchers investigating the effects of Arctic ice melt on seasonal whale migrations, probing cancerous cells with acoustic levitation and hijacking mating signals of the Asian Citrus Psyllid to prevent citrus greening will describe their latest findings during a webcast press event on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015. The event will be streamed live at 10:00 a.m. from the 170th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), which takes place November 2-6 in Jacksonville, Fla.

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Eavesdropping on Arctic whales, cheering in college hockey games, levitating cells to detect disease-signaling stiffness, gender equality in chickadee songs, and detecting hive health through honeybee vibrations are among the highlights of the many being made at ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting. Press releases for these sessions are currently available under embargo. Additionally, a gallery featuring lay-language versions of presented papers is available; highlights include the evolution of pianos, identifying dementia with automated speech recognition.

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Play a flute in Carnegie Hall, and the tone will resonate and fill the space. Play that same flute in the Grand Canyon, and the sound waves will crash against the rock walls, folding back in sonic chaos. The disparity is clear – to the modern listener, the instrument belongs in an auditorium. "Distinct echoes would be totally unforgivable in today's performance spaces," says Steven J. Waller, an archaeo-acoustician. “But, in the past, people sought echoes."

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Psychoacoustics identifies five basic types of emotional speech: angry, fearful, happy, sad and neutral. In order to fully understand what’s happening with speech perception, a research team at the University of Texas at Austin studied how depressed individuals perceive these different kinds of emotional speech in multi-tonal environments. They will present their findings at the 169th ASA meeting, held this week in Pittsburgh.

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Engineers at Virginia Tech have taken the first steps toward building a novel dynamic sonar system inspired by horseshoe bats that could be more efficient and take up less space than current man-made sonar arrays. They are presenting a prototype of their "dynamic biomimetic sonar" at the 169th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America held May 18-22, 2015 in Pittsburgh.

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Recently, scientists from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) have jointly demonstrated cream separation from natural whole milk at liter-scales for the first time using ultrasonic standing waves -- a novel, fast and nondestructive separation technique typically used only in small-scale settings.

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Playing natural sounds such as flowing water in offices could boosts worker moods and improve cognitive abilities in addition to providing speech privacy, according to a new study from researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. They will present the results of their experiment at the 169th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, held May 18-22, 2015 in Pittsburgh.

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Researchers at the University of Colorado suggest that the portion of the brain devoted to hearing can become reorganized even with early-stage hearing loss, and may play a role in cognitive decline. They have applied fundamental principles of neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to forge new connections, to determine the ways it adapts to hearing loss, as well as the consequences of those changes, and their findings will be presented at ASA’s 169th meeting.