Acoustical Society of America
148th Meeting Press Luncheon News Release
PERFECT PITCH IN MUSIC,
PORTABLE OSTEOPOROSIS SENSOR,
AND POSSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR WHALE BEACHINGS
TO BE DISCUSSED AT ACOUSTICS PRESS LUNCHEON
AND WEB-BASED PRESS ROOM
Melville, New York, November 8, 2004
A portable ultrasonic sensor for measuring bone health, new evidence that a coveted musical ability may be more learnable than conventionally thought, and other new developments in the science of sound will be presented during a press luncheon at next week's Acoustical Society of America (ASA) meeting in San Diego.
The luncheon will be held on Tuesday, November 16 from 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. in the Esquire Room of The Town and Country Hotel (500 Hotel Circle North, San Diego, CA 92108). The speakers and topics are listed below. The entire acoustics meeting takes place from November 15-19, 2004. Reporters who wish to attend the luncheon, the meeting, or both, should reply to this message and fill out the form at the end of this release.
WEB PRESSROOM WITH OVER 20 LAY-LANGUAGE PAPERS
The ASA Press Room currently contains 21
lay-language papers on some of the most exciting new meeting results. The
website also includes the general
press release for the meeting, and a searchable
database of all meeting abstracts.
MEETING REGISTRATION
If you're attending the press luncheon only, no meeting badge is necessary--simply
return an RSVP form (found at the end of this message) if you haven't previously
done so. If you'd like to attend the rest of the meeting, you can get a complimentary
meeting badge by going to the ASA registration area in the Town & Country
Hotel. Please show press credentials or other form of ID to indicate that you
are a member of the news media or a science writing student. At the registration
desk, you will fill out a short form to obtain your badge.
The following text describes the press luncheon topics, and lists some examples
of lay language papers that are available online.
PRESS LUNCHEON TOPICS
Acoustical Society of America Meeting
Esquire Room
Town & Country Hotel, San Diego
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
PERFECT PITCH IN MUSIC
Presenter: Diana Deutsch, University of California, San Diego (858-453-1558,
ddeutsch@ucsd.edu)
Absolute pitch, popularly known as "perfect pitch," is the ability
to name or produce a musical note of particular pitch without first hearing
a reference note. It is extremely rare in the U.S. and Europe, with an estimated
prevalence of less than one in 10,000. This rarity has so far been unexplained.
Deutsch will report on the first large-scale study comparing the prevalence
of absolute pitch in two normal populations--one in China and one in the US--by
means of a direct test. Strikingly, Deutsch and her colleagues have found
that perfect pitch is more common in students who speak the "tone language"
Mandarin, in which the tones of words carry specific meanings. The findings
suggest that the potential for acquiring absolute pitch may be universal at
birth. It raises the possibility that parents--no matter what their language--may
be able to take steps to encourage the development of absolute pitch in their
children during the "critical period" when infants are learning
the main features of their native language. The new work is a followup to
a 1999 study on perfect pitch in language, in which Deutsch and her colleagues
found that speakers of Mandarin and Vietnamese can produce the pitches of
their tone languages with very high accuracy. (Meeting Paper 3pMUb3)
--Meeting abstract at http://asa.aip.org/web2/asa/abstracts/search.nov04/asa461.html
--Lay language paper at http://www.aip.org/148th/deutsch.html
--UC-San Diego news release on this paper available from Inga Kiderra, University
of California, San Diego (ikiderra@ucsd.edu)
--Meeting abstract at http://asa.aip.org/web2/asa/abstracts/search.nov04/asa461.html
PORTABLE ULTRASOUND DEVICE FOR MONITORING OSTEOPOROSI
Presenter: Jonathan Kaufman, CyberLogic, Inc., New York (212-260-1351, jjkaufman@cyberlogic.org)
Jonathan Kaufman will present a portable ultrasound device for noninvasive
assessment of bone for such diseases as osteoporosis. In a clinical study
of 60 women ranging in age from 25-88, the device used ultrasound to measure
bone mass in the women's heels. The researchers hope the low-cost, handheld
device could be used by primary care physicians globally, including in the
developing world, to routinely test the bone health of patients. Called QRT
2000, the device is currently undergoing FDA evaluation, and Kaufman expects
FDA approval within a year. (Paper 1pBB11)
--Meeting abstract at http://asa.aip.org/web2/asa/abstracts/search.nov04/asa80.html
--More information at http://www.cyberlogic.org/spie2004.pdf
POSSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR
WHALE BEACHINGS
Last year in the journal Nature, researchers suggested that some version
of decompression sickness might be causing the beachings of marine mammals
near Navy exercises. Meanwhile, a recent study in the Journal of Theoretical
Biology shows that marine mammals might commonly carry "supersaturated"
levels of nitrogen, in which a higher-than-normal amount of nitrogen gas is
dissolved in their bodies. Crum and his colleagues have performed a series
of experiments that suggest even modest levels of underwater sound could trigger
bubble formation in a liquid of supersaturated nitrogen. The supersaturation
levels can result in very large nitrogen bubbles, which can have potentially
deleterious biological effects. Crum will present preliminary results of these
experiments in efforts to better understand--and prevent--the beachings. (Paper
2pAB8)
--Lay language paper at http://www.aip.org/148th/crum.html
--Meeting abstract at http://asa.aip.org/web2/asa/abstracts/search.nov04/asa252.html
ENGLISH AND FRENCH CLASSICAL
MUSIC REFLECTS THE MELODY AND RHYTHM OF SPEECH IN THE TWO LANGUAGES
Presenter: Aniruddh D. Patel, the Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla, California
(858-626-2085, apatel@nsi.edu)
Researchers at the Neurosciences Institute (www.nsi.edu) have performed
quantitative analysis of rhythm and melody patterns (speech "prosody")
in spoken French and English, and compared them to the melody and rhythm patterns
in the instrumental classical music of each nation. They have found evidence
that English and French classical music reflects the prosody of each nation's
respective language. Patel and colleagues studied English composers such as
Elgar, Holst, and Vaughan Williams. They studied numerous French composers
such as Debussy, Fauré, Ravel, and Saint-Saëns. (Paper 5aSC13)--Lay language paper at http://www.aip.org/148th/patel.html
--Meeting abstract at http://asa.aip.org/web2/asa/abstracts/search.nov04/asa736.html
FULL LAY LANGUAGE PAPER LIST:
http://www.aip.org/148th/lay_lang.html
http://www.aip.org/148th/lay_lang.html
REPLY FORM
Please return the REPLY FORM if you are interested in attending the meeting or receiving additional information.
REPORTER'S REPLY FORM
148th ASA Meeting, San Diego, CA
November 15-19, 2004
Please return this form (if you have not already done so) to Ben Stein
at bstein@aip.org
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Diego.
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