The Alarm

Peaceful awakenings: taking the "alarm" out of the alarm clock.

The quality of my daily awakening ritual changed dramatically a few months ago when I was exposed to the Timex Nature Sounds alarm clock. Prior to this, it had never occurred to me to use something other than the traditional buzzer-type alarm clock that I had had since 1986 because “it still worked.” While this was true, it worked by emitting a loud obnoxious sound that stimulated a fight or fl...

Neurobiology: Sounding the Alarm

Acoustical analysis has revealed a peculiar pattern of energy distribution in human screams; behavioral and neuroimaging data suggest that this pattern is associated with rapid and enhanced processing of sound cues signalling fear.

Alarm Calls

Animals commonly vocalize when threatened by a predator. These signals, usually termed alarm calls (from old Italian all arme ‘to arms’ on the approach of an enemy), have continued to bewilder and fascinate for a number of reasons, the first of which is mainly practical. In animal research, it is often difficult to break down the continuous behavioral stream into discrete and meaningful units, ...

Tinnitus – alarm in the ear

Blooming alarm

warning that deadly new strains of tuberculosis, virtually untreatable using the drugs currently available, appear to be spreading across the globe, raising the spectre of a resurgence in a disease which for many generations has laid in the background, seemingly beaten, but which may now make a major comeback as a lethal new pathogen. The new strains are known as extreme drug-resistant TB or XD...