Of course, she does!

 Earth's Hum Sounds More Mysterious Than Ever

Charles Q. Choi
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.comWed Apr 16, 9:11 AM ET

Earth gives off a relentless hum of countless notes completely imperceptible to the human ear, like a giant, exceptionally quiet symphony, but the origin of this sound remains a mystery.

Now unexpected powerful tunes have been discovered in this hum. These new findings could shed light on the source of this enigma.

The planet emanates a constant rumble far below the limits of human hearing, even when the ground isn't shaking from an earthquake. (It does not cause the ringing in the ear linked with tinnitus.) This sound, first discovered a decade ago, is one that only scientific instruments - seismometers - can detect. Researchers call it Earth's hum.

Investigators suspect this murmur could originate from the churning ocean, or perhaps the roiling atmosphere. To find out more, scientists analyzed readings from an exceptionally quiet Earth-listening research station at the Black Forest Observatory in Germany, with supporting data from Japan and China.

Different types

In the past, the oscillations that researchers found made up this hum were "spheroidal" - they basically involved patches of rock moving up and down, albeit near undetectably.

Now oscillations have been discovered making up the hum that, oddly, are shaped roughly like rings. Imagine, if you will, rumbles that twist in circles in rock across the upper echelons of the planet, almost like dozens of lazy hurricanes.

Scientists had actually expected to find these kinds of oscillations, but these new ring-like waves are surprisingly about as powerful as the spheroidal ones are. The expectation was they would be relatively insignificant.

New thinking

This discovery should force researchers to significantly rethink what causes Earth's hum. While the spheroidal oscillations might be caused by forces squeezing down on the planet - say, pressure from ocean or atmospheric waves - the twisting ring-like phenomena might be caused by forces shearing across the world's surface, from the oceans, atmosphere or possibly even the sun.

Future investigations of this part of the hum will prove challenging, as "this is a very small signal that is hard to measure, and the excitation is probably due to multiple interactions in a complex system," said researcher Rudolf Widmer-Schnidrig, a geoscientist at the University of Stuttgart, Germany.

Still, a better understanding of this sound will shed light on how the land, sea and air all interact, he added.

Researcher Dieter Kurrle and Widmer-Schnidrig detailed their findings March 20 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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So yesterday I participated in my first ever bicycling event, Woodstock 2008!  We rode 33 miles and it's the farthest I've ever ridden at one time.  The temperature high was in the low 50s and it was windy as all get-out!  Despite the wind, which Marc insisted on calling a "pixie wind" because it's capricious, we averaged about 10.5 miles per hour and it took us about 3 1/2 hours to complete.  Toward the end, I wasn't sure I would be able to finish - being outside when it's windy is tiring enough but riding into a brisk headwind is exhausting! 

Marc laughed because, as a woman passed us (one of MANY people passing us!), she commented on the wind and I told her it was sucking away my will to live (I'm a wee bit melodramatic).  About 50 feet later, we arrived at the end of our ride.  Heh ...  His GPS unit calculated that we'd spent about 1800 calories, so he treated me to Cold Stone (oatmeal cookie ice cream with Heath bar is the BEST!) and we came home and took a long nap.

It was a beautiful ride, though, through mostly flat farmland.  In about two weeks, it will be breathtaking.  Already, we were seeing signs of new life.  The fields were so lush with spring grass that I wanted to roll in them.  Marc said he didn't think the farmers would appreciate my crop circles.  :(  I only took a couple of pictures; I wanted to take more but, each time we stopped, we got that much colder.

Next organized ride is in a couple of weeks.  Fifty miles.  This time I'm praying to the wind AND rain gods to give us a break!  Pixie wind, my Aunt Fannie ...

Photos:

Riding Truck, my shiny new bicycle!   Isn't she purdy?  And she rides like a dream.  I love my old bike but Truck is now the #1 bicycle.  My Heart built her for me with his very own hands - even the wheels are custom!  The little blue thing on the handlebar is Spanque L'Monque, our touring mascot.

We're hoping to participate in a 50-mile biking event this weekend, so please do your weather magic so we can have a warm, sunny Saturday!

I haven't been writing too much but I entered a writing contest - "The Ultimate Taboo" - and won!  Ha ha!  By the time I decided I wanted to try it, the deadline was the next day so I banged out my story in about half an hour.  It's quite naughty, the subject was taboos after all, so I'm not going to post it here but if you go to Writer's Cafe, you can read it!  I just want to stress it's raunchy and sick but those were the requirements for the contest.  And doesn't it just figure I'd score with my first attempt?  Yikes.

This time I went with Jessica, Brandy, and Brandy's friend Tom.  What a fun group!  We shopped some - I bought the tiny cauldron I've always wanted - and ate pizza at Ha Ha's.  Jess and I were held hostage by the ultimate conspiracy theorist (note to future visitors: avoid the head shop!) and Brandy was waylaid by an aged hippy with broccoli bits stuck in his beard.  His breath stank of broccoli too.  Ick.  We also spent some time in Glen Helen, where these photos were taken.  Another beautiful bit of Ohio!

 

And it doesn't happen often, folks.  Alysia gave me the idea to write to Photobucket about deleting Venus after she found photos of a very naked David on their site.  Here's what I said:

Dear Photobucket,
>
> I added a photo of the Venus of Willendorf, an ancient and well-known
> spiritual icon, and it was deleted because it "violated terms of
> service".  I can only think it's because it depicts a female nude.  Yet a
> quick search of this site yields a photo of the statue of David.  I have no
> problem with it - he's beautiful, but why delete the Venus and not David?
> Both are equally naked.  While we're at it, there are several Davids on this
> site who blatantly display their male mammaries.  Maybe those photos should be
> deleted as well.  Please note, I don't really expect a response; I'm just
> venting my frustrations at people who equate nudity with dirty things.
>
> B's ~ Susan

Here's their response (which I received about 5 minutes after I sent my message):

Dear pixiestyx17@yahoo.com,

The image was removed in error and has been restored. Sorry for the
inconvenience.

Sincerely,

Your Photobucket Support Team

Ha ha!  Nudity prevails on Photobucket!  A tiny, sweet victory!