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Secrets of Beatboxing Revealed By MRI

Posted by samzenpus on from the mind-of-doug-e-fresh dept.

united_notions writes "An international team from UCSD and Philips Research have published a paper (article paywalled; extensive free related resources at UCS here) in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, showing the results of real-time magnetic resonance imaging conducted on a beatboxing performer. The authors make interesting comparisons to sounds in many minority languages around the world (such as the 'click' consonants in many African languages); they also show how beatboxing sounds can be represented using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)."

7 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. good use of grant money by mwessel · · Score: 3

    They use an mri machine for this? They charge patients 11k for it's use when they're sick.

    1. Re:good use of grant money by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So they should stop all forms of research until there are no sick people left? I'm sure they're not bumping critical patients to do this work.

      Sometimes in the process of learning how some of these things work, you can stumble on ways to help with other things.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re: good use of grant money by Ferante125 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They do the scans on Sunday night when they are no patients ( I've been a subject in other experiments). But apart from that, if you think that there's no medical value to this research, you need to sit back and do something that enhances your imagination. They've also studied how cancer patients swallow. Besides the vocal tract, the heart is another organ that needs real time mri, so it's no gimmick. Also this research was from USC, not UCSD.

    3. Re:good use of grant money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I once worked in a medical research center where they had a MRI machine, as well as a CT scanner. The funny thing is that a MRI has to be always powered on, so they were always looking for uses, because it was going to use energy whether you used it or not. For example, several coworkers that needed a scan had them done at the center and then transferred to the hospital, on the condition that the center would keep a copy of the data for future use.

  2. Re:Dammit... by TWX · · Score: 3, Funny

    Step 1, spend about a decade getting a PhD.

    Step 2, work for another, more senior researcher for a decade, building up credit in academic research.

    Step 3, spend another decade writing grant proposals and doing research that ties into others' research or acts to confirm or refute others' research.

    Step 4, write this grant proposal and begin this study

    Step 5, profit!

    Don't worry that it only took 30 years to get there...

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  3. Editing by bgeezus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Note: USC is not the same thing as UCSD is not the same thing as UCS... But for all you naysayers, keep in mind that there is a tremendous amount we don't understand about the way humans produce sound. By studying the fundamental mechanisms behind human speech production, we can gain insight into that process, and can understand more accurately what happens when things go wrong.

  4. Re:Live in Kalifornia, where Feinstein can earmark by similar_name · · Score: 3, Informative

    California pays more in Federal taxes than it receives in earmarks. By and large, Blue states pay in more than they receive while Red states receive more than they pay in (Texas is one of, if not the only, exception to this). So, while Democrats are generally thought of as being for bigger federal government and Republicans are for smaller federal government, the Blue states pay for it and the Red states get the benefit. Go figure.