Raman active phonons in the type-I clathrate compounds of X8Ga16Ge30 X=Eu,Sr,Ba have been fully assigned by the combination of polarized Raman scattering and first principles calculations. The dynamical motions of guest ions in the 6d-site cage have been clearly identified. The energy of the modes, related to a rattling motion, decreases with decreasing temperature. The energy-decrease at low t...

Rattling by rattlesnakes is one of the fastest vertebrate movements and involves some of the highest contraction frequencies sustained by vertebrate muscle. Rattling requires higher accelerations at higher twitch frequencies, yet a previous study showed that the cost per twitch of rattling is independent of twitch frequency. We used force and video recordings over a range of temperatures to exa...

We have studied the vibrational properties of some of the compounds based on the Type II silicon, germanium, and tin-based clathrate materials using LDA electronic structure methods. The lattices in these framework materials have open cages which can contain weakly bound guest impurities, and these guests produce local (“rattling”) vibrational modes. Such modes may scatter the extended, heat ca...

Unlike vision, the mechanisms underlying auditory motion perception are poorly understood. Here we describe an auditory motion illusion revealing a novel cue to auditory speed perception: the temporal frequency of amplitude modulation (AM-frequency), typical for rattling sounds. Naturally, corrugated objects sliding across each other generate rattling sounds whose AM-frequency tends to directly...

Are infants capable of representing false beliefs, as the mentalistic account of early psychological reasoning suggests, or are they incapable of doing so, as the minimalist account suggests? The present research sought to shed light on this debate by testing the minimalist claim that a signature limit of early psychological reasoning is a specific inability to understand false beliefs about id...