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These incredible acoustic cameras can actually see sound

Here's how they work.

steve mould, acoustic cameras, seeing sound

YouTube creator Steve Mould shows us what echo looks like through an acoustic camera.

It’s bizarre to think about seeing sound, but nowadays we can do just that. If you haven’t seen an acoustic camera before, that’s because they’re mainly used for industrial purposes, but they’ve been available commercially from gfai tech since 2001.

YouTuber Steve Mould, who has a science channel with over 2.1 million subscribers, took the complicated concept of the acoustic camera and made it easy to understand in his latest video, “Acoustic cameras can SEE sound.”

In the video, Mould explains how an acoustic camera is much like your smartphone's video recorder. But it also creates visual representations of sound emanating from where it’s generated within the video.


“They can show you where, in a scene, sound is coming from,” Mould says. The videos also allow you to isolate images within the recording and listen to any sound they produce.

The video shows how acoustic cameras are used in industrial settings for noise reduction and machine maintenance. For example, if a train is flying by at top speed, the acoustic camera can separate the sounds from each wheel as it passes. This allows engineers to analyze the sounds produced by each wheel to determine if they need to be fixed or replaced before there’s trouble.

To record the sound and visuals simultaneously, each camera has an array of strategically placed microphones to reproduce spatial information about sound. They even work in slow motion, and the echoes look amazing.

It’s not hard to imagine a world where, in addition to the video we take on our smartphones, we’ll be able to get a three-dimensional look at the soundscape as well.

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After over a thousand years of peaceful relations, European semi-superpowers Sweden and Switzerland may finally address a lingering issue between the two nations. But the problem isn’t either country’s fault. The point is that the rest of the world can’t tell them apart. They simply don’t know their kroppkakor (Swedish potato dumpling) from their birchermüesli (a Swiss breakfast dish).

This confusion on the European continent has played out in countless ways.

Swedish people who move to the United States often complain of being introduced as Swiss. The New York Stock Exchange has fallen victim to the confusion, and a French hockey team once greeted their Swiss opponents, SC Bern, by playing the Swedish National Anthem and raising the Swedish flag.

Skämtar du med mig? (“Are you kidding me?” in Swedish)

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Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash

The MC Hammer dance though.

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Brittany and Kelly’s video, which amassed, I kid you not, more than 40 million views on TikTok, shows the pair grooving in sneakers (Brittany’s were white because, hello, wedding dress) to their “dance through the decades.”

It all began with Young MC’s “Bust a Move,” to give you a clear picture. And bust a move, they did.

Though the duo did a handful of iconic moves—the tootsie roll, the MC Hammer dance, the Carlton, just to name a few—“the dougie,” made famous by Cali Swag District, was the obvious fan favorite.
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Fowl Language by Brian Gordon


Brian Gordon is a cartoonist. He's also a dad, which means he's got plenty of inspiration for the parenting comics he creates for his website, Fowl Language (not all of which actually feature profanity).

He covers many topics, but it's his hilarious parenting comics that are resonating with parents everywhere.

"My comics are largely autobiographical," Gordon tells me. "I've got two kids who are 4 and 7, and often, what I'm writing happened as recently as that very same day."

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Identity

75-year-old ‘hip-hop granny’ impresses and inspires with her dance moves

Ms. Stephanie didn’t even start formal dance lessons until she was almost 30.

Ms. Stephanie bringing it at her hip-hop class.

Stephanie Walsh isn't your average hip-hop dancer. At 75, "Ms. Stephanie" is still able to hold her own on the dance floor, popping and locking with people a third her age, and she loves it.

When you see her dance—and her enviable muscle tone—you might think she'd been a trained dancer all her life. But she actually didn't take any formal dance lessons until she was almost 30.

Walsh told Growing Bolder that she had wanted her daughter to dance when she was little, so she got her ballet lessons, which the daughter hated. Realizing that dancing was her dream and not her daughter's, Walsh took her kiddo out of ballet and started classes herself right away.

She had always loved to dance and developing her skills only led to more and more dancing.

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Education

A teacher asked a great question about superintendent pay. Then, all hell broke loose.

Her earnest question about inequality in our education system was met with a grotesque abuse of power.


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Teacher Deyshia Hargrave begged the question. Minutes later, she was handcuffed and placed in the backseat of a cop car.

The scene was captured below by YouTube user Chris Rosa, who attended a board meeting for Vermilion Parish Schools in Louisiana.

You can watch Hargrave begin speaking about 33 seconds in. The situation starts becoming contentious around 6:35 minutes. Hargrave is arrested at 8:35, and then walked outside in handcuffs and placed in the back of police vehicle.


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Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody has been covered dozens of different ways. But you've never seen it performed like this.

As one of the most iconic songs in rock music, Bohemian Rhapsody is recognizable no matter how it's done. As children, my brother and I used to belt out Galileos and Figaros in the backseat of our parents' Volkswagon whenever the song came on (yes, just like in Wayne's World). While other kids learned about Beelzebub in Sunday School, I learned about him from Queen's perfect harmonies. If there were an anthem from my classic rock-filled childhood, it would be Bohemian Rhapsody.

It's one of those songs that is hard to cover well, though it hasn't stopped people from trying. I've enjoyed some renditions, but nothing has caught my attention or delight more than this kapa haka version from New Zealand.

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via TheEllenShow / YouTube

Mark Wahlberg on "The Ellen Show."

Actor Mark Wahlberg recently attended a daddy-daughter dance with his 10-year-old, Grace. Sadly, Grace had no interest in seeing her father strutting his stuff on the dance floor.

"I didn't get one dance," Wahlberg told Ellen DeGeneres. "And I told her we were going to do the whole big circle and I was going to go off. And she said, 'Dad, if you embarrass me, I will never talk to you again.' But what she did do is she hung out with me."

No matter who your dad is, especially if you're a 10-year-old-girl, you have zero desire to see him dance in front of your friends.

But the parents at the dance probably would have had a blast seeing Wahlberg bust out some of his old-school '90s Marky Mark moves.

However, Wahlberg couldn't help but leave his mark on the music being played at the dance.

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