Wondercabinet

Wondercabinet

Oddities and Curiosities

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The Music of the Spheres

In July of 2004, the Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn after seven years of touring the solar system. Among other data, it recorded the radio waves emitted by that planet’s famous rings. Later, those recordings were reduced by a factor of five to bring them into the range of human hearing. This recording is the result. Scientists posit that this is the sound of meteoroids perpetually striking the chunks of ice that make up the rings, like mallets on a marimba, or (more apropos) a needle on the grooves of a gramaphone.

May 25, 2012

The Swedish Rhapsody Irdial

For over sixty years, in countries all over the globe, shortwave radio stations have been transmitting strange broadcasts in numerous languages that consist entirely of artificial voices repeating strings of numbers, words, and letters. Widely assumed to be a method of sending covert messages to spies, using one-time pad encryption, these so-called “Numbers Stations” have never been acknowledged by any government and activity has only only increased after the Cold War.  The uniquely eerie sample provided here is taken from a four-disc collection of these signals called The Conet Project.

May 22, 2012

This is what scientists were doing over seventy years ago. Just imagine what they are doing now.

(Warning: overly sensitive animal lovers should probably skip this one)

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms

May 10, 2012

Best think twice before getting that hip replacement.

Metalosis Maligna

May 2, 2012