Sound Notions

Explosive activity continues at Alaska's Mount Redoubt. I paid homage to the Alaskan volcano by concocting a dessert named for the 49th state in my Brooklyn kitchen.

How well do you know your tongue?

Linda Bartoshuk, Ph.D, the director of Human Research at the University of Florida's Center for Smell and Taste, says the fleshy flap inside your mouth is a central site for chemical reactions involving taste and smell -- and that the traditional tongue map is a lie.

The Department of Defense has a new voice. Here's what it sounds like:

It's a little tinny at times, but the twice-monthly web radio show, "Armed With Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military," packs an informational punch. And it's not just targeted to stealth-bomber savants and jet propulsion professionals.

I've seen 2050. It's an interactive exhibition animated by four noseless characters with British accents.

Buz, Eco, Tek, and Dug (the orthography of the future is apparently destined to be streamlined) each have unique views on how the human race can best careen forward. And they each have an "S," presumably for Survival, on their futuristic garb.

Watch out, neurons, there's stuff that we just can't see -- or process -- in the magician's toolbox (and in real life). Sure, the top hat, rabbit, and colorful scarves are hard to miss. But they're also used to distract us -- and to focus our gaze away from other activities.

The combination of magic and science drew a few hundred people to the auditorium of the New York Academy of Sciences for Science & The City's third installment in a series on the five senses.

Chances are you've played Rock, Paper, Scissors, but how do you calculate your strategy, if you have one at all?

In Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life, physicist Len Fisher points out that putting yourself in your opponent's mindset is a key to success in the game.

I'm a non-geek, a non-Linux user and a non-male. I had never hacked anything in my life. And I had no plans -- or foreseeable need -- to do so.

Then, I discovered PureData. When an audio engineer friend mentioned the open-source programming language that uses rectangular boxes to build audio, video and graphics, I was intrigued.