Last month I was interviewed about a charming effort by researchers at the Australian National University to sonify the great Murray River. That story, which was featured on ABC's Science Friction radio program, illustrated how ANU scientists and students were using sound to map the hydrological (and human) changes that occur over the river's 2500 km run.
I'm so so happy to see how other scientists are using music and sonification to portray environmental data in a novel and unexpected way, and really enjoyed listening to the song of the river as it cuts across southeastern Australia. If environmental scientists want to grab people's attention, we need to be more open to this sort of creative and interesting approaches to make our data more visceral and impactful.
