Soundshader published on Github a study of using the DFT shift theorem to generate spectrograms from birdsong and compare them to spectrograms generated from musical instruments.
I thought the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest was the best in years with lots of great tunes. Although it didn't win, Ukraine's entry from Go_A is an instant banger. Here's their longer version of the song to bop to!
Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos announced plans for its nuclear power space tug spacecraft to go interplanetary in 2030 with missions to the Moon and Jupiter.
Adam Polak at The Software House published an interesting overview piece on the state of software architecture approaches available in 2021, complete with design patterns, case studies, and micro-services.
Researchers at UCL conducted a study where participants trained themselves to use a robotic third thumb which was desisgned by the Royal College of Art. Users of the thrid thumb control its movement using their toes. The UCL study measured brain activity of participants after time using the thumb and found that the brain's representation of the hand had changed.
Aquarius Engines in Israel have developed a small single piston engine that runs on hydrogen, without the need for a more complicated hydrogen fuel cell. Applications for the clean burning engine with a small 10kg footprint are being explored by Nokia to power remote communicatinos towers.
Researchers in Australia conducted a memory test study where participants were asked to remember and recite a list of butterfly names. Using ancient aboriginal story telling techniques to encode knowledge, one group in the study were taught how to construct a story around the names. Another group were taught how to use the memory palace technique to remember the names, and the control group were left untaught.
The Irish Times published a piece this week about Percy Ludgate who is believed to be Ireland's first computer scientist. In 1914 the accountant and inventor from Skibereen presented designs for the worlds second analytical engine, a mechanical computer of the time.
