PRI's The World in Words had a story about the vocoder. Doctor Who fans will know it as the voice of the Daleks. Daft Punk fans will know it from half of their albums. Clockwork Orange fans will know it from the horrorshow version of Ludwig Van's "Ode to Joy" in the score. But after its invention at Bell Labs in 1936, it took a detour through the war effort. It was used to encode some phone conversations between Churchill and FDR. Apparently, Eisenhower did not like sounding like a chipmunk but I'd love to know what he'd sound like singing "One More Time."
The Beeb has a series where David Attenborough reflects on random things: the evolution of the kiwi bird, climbing a rope in South America and the spice trade. One of the episodes was about the Charnia fossil. As a boy, he was an avid fossil hunter but he never hunted in the Charnwood Forest near his home in central England (near Birmingham) because he knew the rocks were too old, that is Precambrian. A schoolboy found the first specimen there in 1957 which changed our understanding of that era. The fossil, first thought to be algae, appear to be some kind of soft coral. The fossil is at first glance not that exciting but it has huge repercussions. Until then, some thought the Precambrian was devoid of life. Since then, more varieties of Chania have been found. Apparently, Newfoundland is one of the best places to look for them. Of course, it's difficult to make sweeping statements when the Precambrian was so freaking long-that is, 4000 to 543 Million years ago freaking long. These fossils are now considered to come from the Ediacaran period, which directly preceeded the Cambrian. Here is a picture of the original Charnia on display at the Leicester New Walk Museum.
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