the loneliest mix

photo by Mike Ambs so simple! why did I just now think of this?...

mike-ambs — Sun, 05 May 2013 12:01:04 -0700

so simple! why did I just now think of this? if I can’t go find a never-before-seen rare blue whale, I’ll build one inside a giant glass tank instead. @52hz

photo by Mike Ambs just packaged up and mailed out a @52hz mix...

mike-ambs — Sat, 04 May 2013 23:03:19 -0700

photo by Mike Ambs

just packaged up and mailed out a @52hz mix for someone in Canada. #gumroad

In World First, Whales Sing Blues

mike-ambs — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 23:22:05 -0700

Scientists have pulled off a daring close encounter with Earth’s biggest animal, the Antarctic blue whale, using world-first acoustic tracking techniques.

An Australian-led international team for the first time homed in on the marine giants from hundreds of kilometres away by listening for their songs.

Then, in a hazardous operation in icy waters, a small boat team sped within metres of the fast-moving mammals, which can weight up to 100 tonnes, to dart some for scientific data.

Getting up close to a 30 metre blue was “pretty mind-blowing”, said Virginia Andrews-Goff, whose job it was to fire the darts.

“Certainly I was the size of an ant in comparison.”

Dr Andrews-Goff said she was able to fire satellite tags into two blues’ blubber layers, and watch over the next two weeks as one swam 2000 kilometres, confirming the species’ great range through the Southern Ocean.

Others were sampled with biopsy darts that will yield evidence of the whales’ food, as well as tell whether human pollutants are accumulating in their bodies.

The project underscored the strength of non-lethal techniques, according to Australian Antarctic Division chief scientist, Nick Gales.

“There simply isn’t a scientific reason to go and kill a whale in the Southern Ocean,” Dr Gales said.

Its key was the use of sonar listening devices developed from anti-submarine warfare to find what acoustician Brian Miller said was the equivalent of a needle in a haystack.

Commercial whaling last century killed around 340,000 Antarctic blues, reducing their estimated population to a few hundred by the 1970s.

Today, perhaps a couple of thousand of the endangered animals now roam the ocean, Dr Miller said.

Until now, scientists have studied the whales by following migratory routes, in the hope of encountering blues along the way.

Instead, using sonar to listen for their extremely low-pitched 20-30 second song, Dr Miller said it was possible to hear a blue singing from up to 1100 kilometres away, and gradually home in on the song.

“It’s a very deep song, but all of the Antarctic blues sing the same tune,” Dr Miller said. “They have perfect pitch.”

The research team left New Zealand in January on the chartered fishing boat Amaltal Explorer to work in waters from the Ross Sea region to far south of Tasmania, and analysed 26,545 blues calls on the voyage.

As the ship approached singing whales, Dr Miller’s team was able to triangulate their positions within a few kilometres by dropping sonobuoys into the icy waters.

Observers aboard the Amaltal Explorer were able to do the rest, directing the ship close enough for photo-identification of the whales, or for the darting crew to be launched.

A total of 57 photo-identifications were collected. Dr Andrews-Goff said that by examining dorsal fin shape and skin mottling patterns, scientists could catalogue individuals and compare sightings in later years.

Already one blue with a distinctive fin shape found on this voyage was found to have been photographed off the French Dumont d’Urville base in 2006, she said.

She predicted the voyage’s results would change the way whale research was conducted.

Noted for research under homemade sonobuoys.

Photo

mike-ambs — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 21:05:44 -0700

withhandsandhair: Francis James Mortimer, The Shipwreck (the...

mike-ambs — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:35:04 -0700

withhandsandhair:

Francis James Mortimer,
The Shipwreck (the Arden Craig), St Agnes, Scilly, UK, 1911
Gelatin silver print

photo by erica_hampton via instagram Enjoyed the LA book fair...

mike-ambs — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 13:53:09 -0800

photo by erica_hampton via instagram

Enjoyed the LA book fair and seeing @52hz on display at the Kickstarter table :)

kickstarter: LA Art Book Fair starts today. We’re at the...

mike-ambs — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:03:38 -0800

kickstarter:

LA Art Book Fair starts today.

We’re at the inaugural LA Art Book Fair this week, celebrating the world of art-in-print on Kickstarter.

More than two dozen Kickstarter-funded projects are represented, encompassing everything from Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s major monograph, STUDIO WORK, to cartoonist Will Laren’s $7 zine, Slurricane #3.

In LA? Drop by MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary space and check out some printed matter in person, now through Sunday.

Proud to be a small part of this!

T-shirts and tapes ready to mail out! Photos by Erica.

mike-ambs — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:19:00 -0800

T-shirts and tapes ready to mail out! Photos by Erica.

mikeambs: photo by Mike Ambs just finished prepping everything...

mike-ambs — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 01:54:14 -0800

mikeambs:

photo by Mike Ambs
just finished prepping everything @52hz related for the @kickstarter LA art fair! on a side-note, I really love the way the paint dotted together on this poster, reminds me of stars :) I’ll have to try to do that going forward. if you’re in LA, be sure to drop by the KSR booth!

photo by erica_hampton via instagram #52Hertz t-shirts just...

mike-ambs — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:58:49 -0800

photo by erica_hampton via instagram

#52Hertz t-shirts just arrived. They look amazing @vgkids !! cc @mikeambs

Yes! The 52hz t-shirts turned out beautifully! Can’t wait to get them packed up and mailed out to all the awesome / recent Kickstarter backers.

3 hours of vector-design played back in just under 2 minutes....

mike-ambs — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 23:05:52 -0800

3 hours of vector-design played back in just under 2 minutes. I’ve been needing, for a while now, to create a fully-scalable 52 hz symbol - I finally sat down last weekend to re-create the wave-form in Illustrator; it was the first time I’ve ever made *anything* in Illustrator.

I’m going to take another pass at this - starting from scratch, thanks to advice from Leslie - but still, I had a lot of fun creating my first vector!

photo by Mike Ambs, via Kickstarter Wow - I couldn’t...

mike-ambs — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 13:14:26 -0800

photo by Mike Ambs, via Kickstarter

Wow - I couldn’t believe it when I woke up the morning after launching this campaign to find it was one person shy of being fully funded! By the time I got another chance to sneak away during work and check again, it was fully funded :)

Thank you all so much! I can’t wait to order all the t-shirts, I think they’re going to look really great.

Also, my friend, Melanie, found 2 old Star Wars cassettes that she wanted me to use for 52hz - if there’s any big Star Wars fans out there, let me know and I’ll try to set these aside.

Fig. 2. Temporal sequence for a series of 52-Hz call groups...

mike-ambs — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 13:17:14 -0800

Fig. 2. Temporal sequence for a series of 52-Hz call groups from 3 February 1993. The group of Fig. 1 is the second one here.

Anyone interested in a 52hz t-shirt? You got less then 15 days...

mike-ambs — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 23:35:22 -0800

Anyone interested in a 52hz t-shirt? You got less then 15 days to snag one!

Teresa Wegrzyn - Seascapes 2011-12

mike-ambs — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 12:01:03 -0800

Teresa Wegrzyn - Seascapes 2011-12

via Science Direct A unique whale call with 50–52 Hz emphasis from a single source has been...

mike-ambs — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:56:25 -0800

via Science Direct

A unique whale call with 50–52 Hz emphasis from a single source has been tracked over 12 years in the central and eastern North Pacific. These calls, referred to as 52-Hz calls, were monitored and analyzed from acoustic data recorded by hydrophones of the US Navy Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) and other arrays.

The calls were noticed first in 1989, and have been detected and tracked since 1992. No other calls with similar characteristics have been identified in the acoustic data from any hydrophone system in the North Pacific basin. Only one series of these 52-Hz calls has been recorded at a time, with no call overlap, suggesting that a single whale produced the calls. The calls were recorded from August to February with most in December and January. The species producing these calls is unknown.

The tracks of the 52-Hz whale were different each year, and varied in length from 708 to 11,062 km with travel speeds ranging from 0.7 to 3.8 km/h. Tracks included (A) meandering over short ranges, (B) predominantly west-to-east movement, and (C) mostly north-to-south travel. These tracks consistently appeared to be unrelated to the presence or movement of other whale species monitored year-round with the same hydrophones.

via Boing Boing - Science Scientists usually pick up the call...

mike-ambs — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 02:06:39 -0800

via Boing Boing - Science

Scientists usually pick up the call of the 52-hertz whale sometime between August and December, as it makes its way through a Cold War-era network of underwater microphones in the North Pacific. Although this whale has apparently survived for many years and seems to have grown and matured during that time (based on its voice deepening slightly), it also appears to exist outside of whale social systems. It travels alone. […]

The Loneliest Mix is a fan-site where you can download 52-hertz whale audio clips.

Boing Boing mentioned The Loneliest Mix!!

photo by Mike Ambs @52hz + springsteen = special occasion

mike-ambs — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 21:45:00 -0800

photo by Mike Ambs

@52hz + springsteen = special occasion

mailing out another 52hz mixtape today - this one is headed to...

mike-ambs — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 12:42:00 -0800

mailing out another 52hz mixtape today - this one is headed to brooklyn.

This marks the 1st mix I’ve found a home for through Gumroad - if anyone has been waiting to grab a loneliest mix, now you can do so anytime with this link.

1st spotted via nevver Going under Still out there…...

mike-ambs — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:09:00 -0700

1st spotted via nevver

Going under

Still out there… lost at sea.