These following sound-studies highlights originally appeared in the May 13, 2026, issue of my Disquiet.com weekly email newsletter, This Week in Sound. This Week in Sound is the best way I’ve found to process material I come across. Reader support provides resources and encouragement. Most issues are free. An occasional annotated mixtape is for paid subscribers. Thanks.
▰ Head Trip: “A new study by Britton Elliott Brooks argues that medieval religious images were never truly ‘silent.’ Instead, they could evoke imagined soundscapes in the minds of viewers, creating immersive experiences that blended sight, memory, and sound. The research focuses on the Harley Roll, a medieval English scroll depicting the life of Saint Guthlac, and suggests that pilgrims and worshippers may have mentally ‘heard’ winds, hammering, animal cries, and demonic noises while viewing its images.” Brooks received a PhD at Oxford in English and is an associate professor at Kyushu University in Japan.
▰ Bio Drone: “Scientists from TU Delft, SoundCell and RHMDC (the laboratory at the Reinier de Graaf hospital) have discovered that different bacterial species produce their own characteristic sounds. Building on an earlier development from the same team, they have now shown that bacteria can be identified and their antibiotic susceptibility determined simultaneously, based solely on their sound. This combined approach delivers results within hours instead of days, offering a major step forward in the diagnosis and treatment of bacterial infections.”
▰ Radio On: The great ongoing Cities and Memories project — developed and maintained by Stuart Fowkes — of field recordings and sound works based on field recordings now has its own dedicated online radio station: “an uninterrupted flow of more than 8,000 sounds and reimagined pieces from across more than 140 countries.”
▰ Buzz Killers: The New York Times ran a wonderful online feature by Gina Ryder, with photographs by George Etheredge, about the city’s intercoms and doorbells, and as anyone who follows my Instagram account might imagine, I enjoyed it immensely. It opens: “When a visitor presses a button on an analog New York City apartment intercom, they enter a time portal to somewhere in the last century when the wiring was likely installed. If they’re lucky, someone upstairs will hear it: a metallic, almost offensive clang that sets the dog barking and sends cortisol spiking. Then comes the electric sigh of the lock releasing, and they’re let inside.”
▰ GRACE NOTES: (1) Disintegration Tapes: A study in Nature measures how mildew degrades analog tape. ▰ (2) We All Scream: Whales have learned to “yell” to compensate for the noise of ship traffic. ▰ (3) Volume Matters: A New Yorker cartoon (by Sophie Lucido Johnson and Sammi Skolmoski) joked about loud bird song as a form of, er, compensation. ▰ (4) Ether Madness: A recent XKCD cartoon joked about the absurdist concept of “soniferous aether.” ▰ (5) Coma Dose: Brains under anesthesia may still hear and process the sound of podcasts.
▰ Citation Credits: Thanks, Nicola Twilley (bacteria), Michael Rhode (cartoons), and Rich Pettus (anesthesia)!
