When a snowflake strikes water it melts, freeing up that air mass, which oscillates and makes noise. In addition to its impact on water animals, snowflake noise can create problems for sonar devices which track migrating fish or which are designed to distinguish between natural and human-made sounds. The team s finding might help engineers develop equipment which can filter out the sounds of falling snowflakes. They intend to continue to study the dynamics of bubble oscillation and air encapsulation to determine exactly how the sound is produced. The research appeared in the October Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
Small loss is a big gain.
Using data from the Framingham Heart Study, Moore looked at about 400 study participants between ages 30 and 65 who had lost four or more pounds during the first four years of the study, which began in 1948, and kept it off for four more years. If the participants were between ages 30 and 50 when they lost the weight, she found they were about 25 percent less likely to develop high blood pressure over the next 40 years than men and women who stayed the same weight. People between ages 50 and 65 lowered their risk by 30 percent. Those who lost the weight and then regained it had no benefits, but were not harmed by the gain. Moore told the Associated Press.